Spiders aren’t always the small bugs that skitter away whenever you get close to them; they can come in a large variety of sizes too. In fact, there are a ton of giant spiders living all around the world. While some spiders might be the size of your fist, others can be even larger.
We know very little about some of these giant spiders, and a lot of information about other giant spiders. However, for most of them, we do know their size, and they deserve to be called giant!
Common FAQ’s About Spiders
1.Common spiders that jump?
2.Most common big spiders?
3.How many eyes do spiders have?
4.Are Wolf spiders poisonous?
Here are some of the biggest spiders in the world, and if you see them in your area, it might be a good time to move!
Goliath Birdeater
Native to the jungles of South America, the Goliath Birdeater is a spider that weighs over six ounces, making it the largest spider by mass in the world. It is also the largest in terms of body length, coming up to 13 centimeters.
Despite its name, it actually rarely preys on birds. It was named Birdeater due to its representation on an 18th-century engraving, which shows a Goliath Birdeater eating a hummingbird.
It instead eats worms, frogs, and other large spiders. The Goliath Birdeater attacks its prey and drags it back to its lair to liquefy the inside and sucking out the juices. Ironically, the Goliath Birdeater is also an edible spider and is part of South American cuisine!
Giant Huntsman Spider
While the Goliath Birdeater beats the Huntsman Spider in terms of mass and body length, the Giant Huntsman Spider is the most enormous spider if we look at the size of the legs. It has a leg span that can reach up to 1 foot, and it is found in the caves of Laos.
Interestingly, along with the typical diet that spiders have, this species practices cannibalism. The female eats her male partner after mating with him, much like the Black Widow spider does.
The White Lady Spider or White Huntsman Spider is found in Namibia, living in burrows in the desert. They feed on insects, spiders, and reptiles in the desert, and their body length is the same as the Goliath Birdeater at 13 cm. The leg length of the female spider is 25 centimeters long.
Brazilian Birdeater
The Brazilian Birdeater is a species of giant tarantula that lives in the forests of Eastern Brazil and has a leg span of 10 inches. It’s not the largest spider in the world, but it is the largest tarantula you could ever encounter. They have also been called the Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater due to their legs’ long pink hair.
They do eat small birds when they can catch them, but most Brazilian Bird Eaters eat insects, lizards, frogs, and mice. They don’t spin or use webs to catch their prey but instead grab their victim and inject it with a paralyzing venom before digesting them.
Colombian Tarantula
The Colombian Tarantula, also called the Lesserback Tarantula, is from Columbia and grows to be about 6-7 centimeters in length, with an arm length of about 20 centimeters. While it isn’t the biggest spider on this list, it is a huge tarantula, and it also doesn’t work alone.
In Colombia, it has a friendly relationship with the Dotted Humming Frog. The frog helps to defend the spider from its predators, and the tarantula protects the frog’s eggs from the ants that want to eat them. It’s a really cool symbiotic relationship and shows that even the biggest of us might need help sometimes!
Hercules Spider
Any spider named after the Greek and Roman legend of strength is going to be big and strong! The Hercules Baboon Spider is a very rare spider that was last seen in the wild in the 1900s. Due to its rarity, there isn’t much information out there, but we know that its leg span is 8 inches long. That’s pretty big!
It is named the ‘baboon spider’ because the legs are very similar to a baboon’s fingers, and it is still smaller than the Goliath Birdeating Spider by two-thirds! Much like baboons, and Hercules himself, these spiders are fiercely aggressive and prey on smaller insects and spiders in North Africa.
Camel Spider
Whenever a spider is also called ‘The Wind Scorpion,’ that is a name that you need to run away from really fast! Camel spiders are about six inches in size and weigh about two ounces, and they are predators who feed on other desert insects and even reptiles and small birds. Ironically, they are not spiders or scorpions, but a completely different type of Arachnid altogether.
They are very aggressive spiders, with records of them going toe to toe with scorpions and other large spiders. The biggest camel spiders have a leg size of about 12 centimeters and can be light brown in color.
Brazilian Wandering Spider
The Brazilian Wandering Spiders have leg spans of 13 to 18 centimeters and a 17 to 44-millimeter body length. The wandering spiders are nomads wandering the Costa Rican jungle floors. They hide from the sun under logs and banana plants during the day, and at night they go out and start hunting.
They are one of the few large spiders to present a threat to humans. Due to their venom and wandering nature, they can easily be surprised by humans whenever they take shelter in an area.
They’ve also been called banana spiders due to their tendency to hide under banana trees during the day. Also, for unconfirmed reports that they have been shipped from Brazil to the US by taking shelter in a box of bananas!
The Biggest Spiders In The World
Thankfully, most of us won’t have to worry about these gigantic spiders becoming the norm, and unless you go into an area where they are common, you probably won’t ever see them. Instead, you can content yourself with the small spiders in your local area. They are fascinating to learn about, though, and it would be cool to see what other giant creatures’ nature has been keeping from us.
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