Meet the Tarantula as Big as Your Face

[microrobert]

Meet the Tarantula as Big as Your Face

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It's big, it's hairy, and it's venomous.

The newest spider to give arachnophobes the willies, a tarantula named Poecilotheria rajaei has been discovered on the island nation of Sri Lanka.

With a leg span of 8 inches (20 centimeters) and enough venom to kill mice, lizards, small birds and snakes, according to Sky News, the crawler is covered in subtle markings of gray, pink and daffodil yellow.

http://www.livescience.com/28433-tarantula-poecilotheria-rajaei.html

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

So is it bigger than chicken eating tarantula and goliath tarantula?





http://i.imgur.com/3pN0Uf3.jpg
Martin Nicholas, a water treatment plant salesman, who has a passion for searching for giant spiders, may have discovered a new species, the “Chicken-Eating Tarantula” (shown above).

Nicolas found that the mother spider of this new species was about 10 inches across. This compares well with the record spider, which is 11.8 inches, for the Goliath spider of Venezuela.

Martin Nicholas’ interview in Nature gives insights into how he heard about and tracked down this possible new species: It started a few years back with a letter from a friend in Peru who built power plants. He heard this story of a chicken-eating spider. I love those kinds of stories, they are irresistible. So I had to go to Peru and see if it was true….

Seeing the big mama tarantula with the young [through the use of a spider cam in a burrow] was remarkable. Most tarantulas are in no way gregarious. In fact, they often cannibalize their own young. So seeing that was very unusual. But it may make sense. It looks like when they go out at night as a group, they can catch and kill larger prey by working together. We also discovered that those spiders appeared to be keeping a pet. There was a little frog that lived down in the hole with the spiders. It may offer some sort of service to spiders, like sweeping up ants that might bother the spiders.

We don’t know yet [if the chicken-eating spider is a new species]. I would like to get it properly identified. There are two or three other large black tarantulas that live in the area.Martin Nicholas in Nature, “Giant Chicken-Eating Spider Discovered – Deep Jungles: Monsters of the Forest,” May 8, 2007


"Bird-eating spider" redirects here. Bird-eating spider may also refer to Eastern tarantula.
Goliath birdeater spider


The Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) is a spider belonging to the tarantula family, Theraphosidae. It is considered to be the second largest spider in the world (by leg-span, it is second to the giant huntsman spider), and it may be the largest by mass. Also called the Goliath bird-eating spider, it gets its name from reports of explorers from the Victorian era, who witnessed one eating a hummingbird.These spiders can have a leg span of up to 30 cm (12 in) and can weigh over 170 g (6.0 oz). Birdeaters are one of the few tarantula species that lack tibial spurs, located on the first pair of legs of most adult males.Females always mate, but sometimes may end up eating their mates. Females mature in 3 to 4 years and have an average life span of 15 to 25 years. Males die soon after maturity and have a lifespan of three to six years. Colors range from dark to light brown with faint markings on the legs. Birdeaters have hair on their bodies, abdomens, and legs. The female lays anywhere from 100 to 200 eggs, which hatch into spiderlings within two months.

Goliath Venezuela
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