Goliath Birdeater

Theraphosa blondi inhabits the lowland rainforest of northern South America — Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, Venezuela, northern Brazil. By body mass it is the largest spider in the world, with mature females weighing up to 175 grams and reaching body lengths of 11 cm with leg spans pushing 30 cm. (The giant huntsman spider has a wider leg span but a much smaller, lighter body.) The 'birdeater' name traces to a 1705 illustration by naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian showing one consuming a hummingbird in Suriname. While the species does occasionally take small vertebrates, its diet is primarily large invertebrates, frogs, lizards, and rodents. Goliath birdeaters defend themselves with two unusual mechanisms. First, they kick urticating bristles off the abdomen with a hind leg — clouds of microscopic barbed hairs that cause intense itching, eye irritation, and respiratory distress in mammals. Second, when alarmed they raise on their hind legs and rub the chelicerae and palps together to produce an audible hissing sound — heard up to 4.5 meters away. Despite the size and theater, fang bites in humans are non-lethal: medically painful but no worse than a wasp sting venom-wise. In Venezuelan and Guyanese cuisine, roasted goliath birdeaters are a delicacy with a flavor reportedly close to shrimp.