Biologists capture super-creepy photos of Amazon spiders making meals of frogs, lizards

Date:  February 28, 2019

Source:  University of Michigan

Warning to arachnophobes and the faint of heart: This is the stuff of nightmares, so you might want to proceed with caution.

A University of Michigan-led team of biologists has documented 15 rare and disturbing predator-prey interactions in the Amazon rainforest including keep-you-up-at-night images of a dinner plate-size tarantula dragging a young opossum across the forest floor.

The photos are part of a new journal article titled "Ecological interactions between arthropods and small vertebrates in a lowland Amazon rainforest." Arthropods are invertebrate animals with segmented bodies and jointed appendages that include insects, arachnids (spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks) and crustaceans.

The article, scheduled for online publication Feb. 28 in Amphibian & Reptile Conservation, details instances of arthropod predators -- mostly large spiders along with a few centipedes and a giant water bug -- preying on vertebrates such as frogs and tadpoles, lizards, snakes, and even a small opossum.

"This is an underappreciated source of mortality among vertebrates," said University of Michigan evolutionary biologist Daniel Rabosky. "A surprising amount of death of small vertebrates in the Amazon is likely due to arthropods such as big spiders and centipedes."

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