The video shows the fearsome arachnid hanging from a beam with the bird in its mouth and its legs dangling in the air. The spider was originally believed to be from Australia or a Goliath bird eater, the largest spider in the world.
But expert Jason Dunlop, from the Natural History Museum at the Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research, Germany, told Newsweek that the spider appears to be a pink tarantula “or at least something closely related.”
He said tarantulas generally don’t eat birds, but it is not a strange occurrence. “I suspect the tarantula would have chewed what it could,” he said. “Basically it regurgitates the digestive juices from the prey and then sucks up the liquefied remains. Whatever was left, bones, feathers, would just be discarded.”
According to the National Zoo and the Smithsonian Institute of Conservation Biology, the pink tarantula lives in trees. Females have a leg span of around 12 centimeters, while males are slightly smaller, around 8 centimeters.
They are black and hairy, with a pink coloration at the end of the legs. Pink-toed tarantulas have four appendages near their mouths, two of which contain their fangs and venom and the other two are used as claws and to feel.
Tarantula eats bird. pic.twitter.com/n6Npx2NPGi
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They are native to the jungle regions of northern South America, such as Venezuela, northern Brazil, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname. Tarantulas are active predators that feed on a variety of invertebrates and small vertebrates such as mice, frogs, and lizards. They hunt at night and depend on their large size to subdue their prey.
