Spidey snack! Massive tarantula feasts on a whole BIRD in disturbing footage
- In a toe-curling clip shared on Reddit, a massive tarantula consumes entire bird
- The tarantula hangs from a wooden beam, nibbling away on the house wren
- It is believed the spider is a pink toe tarantula or something ‘closely related’
This is the toe-curling moment a giant spider wraps its hairy legs around a bird and then eats it whole.
In a video posted on Reddit a week ago, the giant, hairy spider is perched on a wooden beam holding an entire bird in its legs.
The spider, believed to be a pink toe tarantula, dwarfs the house wren which hangs limply as it’s hunter nibbles away on it.
A massive spider, believed to be a pink toe tarantula, hangs from a wooden beam slowly devouring an entire house wren
The Reddit user who posted the video originally had initially believed the spider to have been a Goliath bird eater – the largest spider in the world.
However, Jason Dunlop, from the Museum of Natural History at the Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research in Germany believes the spider to be a pink toe tarantula.
Speaking to Newsweek he said: ‘Or at least something closely related.
Dunlop also explained that generally tarantulas don’t eat birds, but there are always exceptions.
He said: ‘I suspect the tarantula would have chewed up what it can.
The pink toe tarantula normally live in trees and can grow to have a leg span of five inches
‘It basically regurgitates digestive juices on to the prey and then sucks the liquified remains back in.
‘Whatever was left—bones, feathers—would simply be discarded.’
The pink toe tarantula is normally found throughout Brazil and the rest of the Amazon basin.
Living in trees, this type of tarantula can grow to have a leg span of up to five inches and have a distinctive pink colouring on the end of their legs.
The hairs on their legs can sometimes be fired from its body as a form of defence.