Huge Spider Drags Opossum Across Rainforest Floor in Haunting Footage

A dinner plate-sized tarantula with a big appetite preyed on a young opossum during a recent hunt in the Amazon rainforest — and the horrifying encounter was caught on tape.

Biologists at the University of Michigan (U of M) studied rare predator-prey interactions, particularly between arthropods and small vertebrates, over the course of a few years in the lowland rainforest located near the Andes foothills. They detailed 15 different predation events in a paper published in “Amphibian & Reptile Conservation” on Thursday.

“This is an underappreciated source of mortality among vertebrates,” Daniel Rabosky, an evolutionary biologist at U of M who leads a team of researchers to the Amazon rainforest about once or twice a year, said in an online statement. “A surprising amount of death of small vertebrates in the Amazon is likely due to arthropods such as big spiders and centipedes.”

The Michigan researchers captured footage and still images of battles between spiders, snakes, scorpions, ants, beetles, water bugs, among others. Many predators relied on paralyzing venom to trap their meal, while others used their large jaws to their advantage. . .

Upon reviewing footage of the rare occurrence, Robert Voss, a mammologist at the American Museum of Natural History confirmed that it appeared to be the first-ever documentation of “a large mygalomorph spider [tarantula] preying upon opossums,” National Geographic reports. (For more from the author of “Huge Spider Drags Opossum Across Rainforest Floor in Haunting Footage” please click HERE)