Halloween Special: World's Biggest Spider Devours Mouse
October 31, 2013—The world's largest spider, the Goliath tarantula is also a venomous killer that liquefies its prey. Gustavo Hormiga, a biology professor at George Washington University, explains the arachnid's ferocious hunting strategy—and why there's no need to fear it unless you're the size of a mouse.
Transcript
Voice of GUSTAVO HORMIGA, PhD, PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY:
This is a goliath spider, one of the largest species of spider. It is probably the heaviest specie of spider there is. I have caught some of these in Guyana and the adult females were the size of my hand.
This is a defensive posture in which they raise their first pairs of legs, and open their chelicerea to expose their fangs to a predator or anybody. Most of the sensory organs are located in their legs. They can actually there's run-ins through a number of modified hairs that can be seen moving with air currents. They use their massive chelicerea to inject venom in their prey, and this venom come out at the end of this dark part of the chelicerea--the cheliceral fang--which works like a hypodermic needle to inject the venom in their prey.
The digestion of their prey is actually started externally. Spiders cannon ingest solid items. They have to liquify their food before ingesting it. Despite the size of the spider, it's actually not very toxic to humans. So if you were to be bitten, you would actually feel a pain that would not be very much worse than a bee or wasp sting.
