If you are an arachnophobe, look away now! Enormous Amazon rainforest spiders have been caught eating frogs, lizards and even furry mammals in shocking footage that will haunt your dreams.
Warning this article contains photos and videos that some readers may find disturbing.
A team of researchers have revealed more than a dozen cases of “disturbing” encounters they witnessed in a lowland part of the rainforest near the foothills of the Andes mountain range, one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet.
The gruesome pick of the troubling lot is a video that shows a spider that’s “bigger than a dinner plate” munching on an opossum. It is the first time such an incident has ever been recorded.
The nightmarish footage was released by the team from the University of Michigan who documented their encounters in the journal Amphibian & Reptile Conservation.
Describing the scene, doctoral candidate Michael Grundler said they “heard some scrabbling in the leaf litter” before turning to see a large tarantula attacking the mammal.
“The opossum had already been grasped by the tarantula and was still struggling weakly at that point, but after about 30 seconds it stopped kicking,” Grundler said.
“We were pretty ecstatic and shocked, and we couldn’t really believe what we were seeing, we knew we were witnessing something pretty special, but we weren’t aware that it was the first observation until after the fact.”
The researchers say the number of creatures with a backbone that fall victim to killer spiders is underestimated but that’s not where the horror ends. They also witnessed giant centipedes eating snails and even a snake. Yes. You read that correctly. Centipedes eating a snake.
“Coral snakes are very dangerous and can kill humans,” another one of the research team, Joanna Larson, explained. “To see one taken down by an arthropod was very surprising. Those centipedes are terrifying animals, actually.”
The hellish revelations were too much for people on social media, who simply couldn’t hide their horror.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!