The Goliath bird-eater is the king of spiders. Weighing up to six ounces and with a leg span of nearly a foot, this tarantula is the largest arachnid on the planet. Goliaths don’t usually eat birds, but they are big enough to be able to-and occasionally they do. “Birdeater” came from an 18th-century engraving that showed another kind of tarantula eating a hummingbird, which gave the entire Theraphosa genus the name birdeater.

Goliath bird-eater spider