Most spiders prey on other smaller invertebrates like crickets and moths, but once in a while, they like to hunt larger creatures, such as opossums.
“Invertebrates preying on vertebrates is common, but it’s generally not assumed to be an important source of mortality for amphibians and reptiles,” said von May, a biologist at the University of Michigan. His research team captured a giant tarantula preying upon a small opossum in the Peruvian jungle. Read more to see what happened.
“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. We were pretty ecstatic and shocked, and we couldn’t really believe what we were seeing,” said Michael Grundler, the paper’s co-author and PhD student.
