Brazilian salmon pink bird-eating tarantula

The Brazilian salmon pink bird-eating tarantula is one of the largest spiders in the world! Their leg span can reach a massive 28cm! 

The species was first discovered in 1917 by Cândido Firmino de Mello-Leitão, a Brazilian zoologist who is considered the founder of arachnology in South America. 

Unlike house spiders, these tarantulas live in burrows and don’t use webs to catch prey but may leave a strand of web outside their burrow as an alert. They have long fangs and venom to paralyze and catch their prey. Their venom is painful but is not fatal to humans, and they’re most likely to run away from you or flick their irritating hairs. Sometimes, they kick these hairs onto their webbing or burrow, where the hairs can be brushed into the air if disturbed.

The females are much larger than the males, but often less vibrant in colour. During breeding, the female will sometimes eat the male if he is too slow to run away! This large meal then sustains the next generation of tarantulas. The egg sac can contain up to 2,000 eggs though not all of these make it to adulthood. Baby tarantulas are often called spiderlings or ‘slings’.