Video: Tarantula Devours Bird Whole

The Dark Side Of Nature / Twitter

A video recently posted and circulating the internet, shows something so frightening it’s hard to believe it’s real at first. The minute-long clip is of a giant, hairy spider devouring an entire bird.

According to Newsweek, the video poster initially misidentified the spider as a Goliath bird eater, which is the largest spider in the world. The spider in this video is actually believed to be a pink toe tarantula.

Jason Dunlop, from the Museum of Natural History at the Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research, Germany, studies arachnids and their relatives. He told Newsweek the spider in the video appears to be a pink toe tarantula (Avicularia avicularia), or at least something closely related.

This particular species of tarantula lives in trees and is found in rainforests in northern South America. Females have a leg span of around 5 inches, while males are slightly smaller, at around 3.5 inches. They are black and hairy, with some pink coloring at the end of their legs. Pink toe tarantulas have four appendages near their mouths, with two containing their fangs and venom. The other two appendages are used as claws and for feeling.

Tarantulas like this one typically feast on small vertebrates like lizards, frogs and mice.

Check out the video below.

WARNING: MAY BE DIFFICULT FOR SOME VIEWERS TO WATCH