VIDEO: a dinner plate-sized tarantula dragging a opossum along the forest floor

JGeropoulas

The Living Force
Arachnophobe alert: The video says this is the first documented evidence of a tarantula large enough to prey on an opossum. Totally creepy and hopefully not a sign of changes in the natural world looming ahead during these strange days of transition.

 
Arachnophobe alert: The video says this is the first documented evidence of a tarantula large enough to prey on an opossum. Totally creepy and hopefully not a sign of changes in the natural world looming ahead during these strange days of transition.


Typically the size that limits land arthopods is the abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere. These types of critters usually only get big in places where there's lots of vegetation (like tropical rainforests) to supply the oxygen they need.

In a period of the earth's history called the carboniferous the oxygen levels skyrocketed (350 - 300 million years ago). One of the intelligent designers apparently though it would have been a good joke to install the lignin (i.e. wood) patch on plant species without giving any of the decomposing organisms the ability to break it down or digest it, resulting in huge pileups of plants and oxygen and crashing CO2 levels. The dragonfiles back then were the size of birds (wingspan of 65 - 70 cm).

So in short I don't see these becoming more common, barring any novel upgrades to their respiratory systems. ;-)
 
Arachnophobe alert: The video says this is the first documented evidence of a tarantula large enough to prey on an opossum. Totally creepy and hopefully not a sign of changes in the natural world looming ahead during these strange days of transition.
oh boy! that's one large spider, but in the Amazon I am not surprised this is the first time they catch the event.
 
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