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The most common habitat for a spider is its beautiful and intricate silk-woven web that almost everyone is familiar with. After all, you don’t want to pass out at the sight of these monstrous creatures, right? To avoid the eye of these hairy critters, you must know where they reside and hunt for a living. Beware Of The Rainforests They Are The Most Common Habitat These play an essential role in their diet as the pedipalps help grab the victim, and fangs inject venom to kill the prey. The most surprising fact is that despite having eight eyes, the eyesight of a goliath birdeater is weak to such an extent that they can only rely upon their hairy body to detect movements or vibrations in their surroundings.įurthermore, these predators have two hairy projections on both sides of their heads called pedipalps and two-inch-long fangs on their bodies. When talking about the anatomy of a birdeater, their body consists of two parts – the head and neck combined and the abdomen. They have eight legs and carry no antenna like most spiders. The body of a birdeater is covered with variegated hairs, mostly in dark and light brown hues coupled with shades of golden. This amazing fact implies that the spider is big enough to feed on a whole bird! Astonishing, isn’t it? Physical Appearance Of The Hairy CrawlerĪpart from its vast body, the goliath birdeater has several other astonishing features associated with its appearance. The spider was named ‘birdeater’ when an eighteenth-century carving was discovered, showing a tarantula family member feeding on a hummingbird. Moreover, as its name implies, the gigantic insect-beast does not feed on birds very often. Its tremendously large body weight of 170 grams(6 ounces), body length of around 13 centimeters (5 inches), and leg span of about 30 centimeters (12 inches) make it worthy of holding the tag of the biggest spider in the world. The weird lineage names are not the only fascinating facts about the birdeater! The goliath birdeater – scientifically known as Theraphosa blondi – is the biggest spider in the world at present to the Theraphosidae family of tarantulas(hairy spiders). The Top 10 Fastest Animals in The World.The Top 10 Biggest Animals In The World.But before doing so, he photographed the spider - using forced perspective to make it appear even larger. The mere thought of it would send chills down the spine of many people, and this is exactly the scenario I found myself dealing with while visiting a biological station in the Ecuadorian Amazon," said Gil.Īs playing roommates with this spider was out of the question, Gil had no choice but to relocate it outdoors.
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"Imagine looking under your bed, only to find the second most venomous spider in the world, which is also one of the world’s largest true spiders, sitting there guarding a thousand baby spiders that hatched from an egg sac. There, guarding its brood, he spotted one of the world’s most venomous arachnids: a human-hand-sized Brazilian wandering spider! Then, as if heeding the advice of Hagrid from the famous Harry Potter franchise, he “followed the spiders” and was led to the underside of his own bed. Spending his days in Napo, Ecuador, Gil was in his bedroom when he noticed several tiny spiders all around him. The circumstances that led to this capture were also no less nightmarish! Straight out of a Hollywood nightmare scenario, the photo scared so many people that it became an overnight viral sensation. Named the winner of the Urban Wildlife category, this photograph titled ‘The spider room’ was captured by an Israeli-Canadian photographer named Gil Wizen. While the winning photographs consisted of some mesmerising, awe-inspiring images of wild animals and their environments, along with some poignant photojournalism stories, one of the pictures that attracted the most eyeballs was that of a seemingly giant spider.
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Earlier this month, The Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards - an annual competition and exhibition developed and produced by the Natural History Museum - announced the winners for this year's edition.
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