Goliath Birdeater

📖 1. Overview

With a leg span of 30 cm (the size of a dinner plate) and a weight of up to 175 g, it is listed in the Guinness World Records as the world's heaviest and largest spider.

🌐 Wikipedia Summary Extract

The Goliath birdeater is a large spider that belongs to the tarantula family Theraphosidae. Found in northern South America, it is the largest spider in the world by mass and body length, and second to the giant huntsman spider by leg span. It is also considerably longer than the largest known prehistoric spider, Mongolarachne, that had a body length of 2.46 centimeters (0.97 in). It is also called the Goliath tarantula or Goliath bird-eating spider; the practice of calling theraphosids "bird-eating" derives from an early 18th-century copper engraving by Maria Sibylla Merian that shows one eating a hummingbird. Despite the spider's name, it rarely preys on birds.

🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology

Along with massive fangs (chelicerae) reaching 2–3 cm in length, when threatened it rubs its hind legs against its abdomen to flick microscopic harpoon-shaped urticating hairs that attack a predator's eyes and respiratory tract.

🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior

Although its name is 'birdeater,' its staple diet in the wild actually consists of large earthworms, frogs, lizards, and rodents.

🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea

It is a representative species illustrating the structural size limits of Arachnida and the principle of hydraulic leg locomotion.