Spiders the Size of Puppies Exist, Say Scientists With Weird Ways of Measuring Spider Size

A scientist deep in the Amazon rainforest has posted pictures of a 12-inch-long spider that reminds him of puppies. Piotr Naskrecki described his encounter with the Goliath birdeater spider on his blog.

“Although far from being the largest member of the subphylum Chelicerata ‘ this honor belongs to horseshoe crabs ‘ Goliath birdeaters are ridiculously huge for a land arthropod. Their leg span approaches 30 cm (nearly a foot) and they weigh up to 170 g ‘ about as much as a young puppy,” Naskrecki writes, which is a very normal way to describe giant spider size, and does not at all suggest that the speaker is envisioning some sort of puppy-vs-giant-spider fight ring, since they are so evenly matched and all.

Naskrecki goes on to assure his readers that the spider is “definitely capable of killing small birds.”