After going through book 2 of the International Wildlife Encyclopedia, I came across something interesting. The original Bird Eater, Avicularia avicularia. This is the same species as the one described by Maria Merian. The book describes them as having Irritating Hairs (Obviously got a wrong species then didn't they :drunk: ), a potent venom which damaged the curator of the London Zoos hand so badly that it left a finger permanantly crooked :silly: and reaching a length of 7 inchs (never worked with avics so can't comment). The book has some nice pictures of what is undoubtely a Avic avic. There is another unidentified avic on the page, a big fang shot of what I presume to be Brachypelma albopilosum and another unidentified arboreal tarantula.

The book is from 1968 so most info is very outdated. Some nice pictures though. Will try and see if I can get some scans of the pages and put them up here for all to see.

iv read about it aswel somewhere else, apparently someone saw what i presume was an ''avic'' chowing a TINY bird up in the tree and thats how it started... ''BIRDEATER'' just like the old predators of the wild vhs ''the giant tarantula'' saying how dangerous the tarantula is and so 4rth.. when everyone thought tarantulas where deadly...

Avicularia braunshauseni (Goliath Pinktoe Tarantula) 18cm could be the spider

F1refly wrote: The book describes them as having Irritating Hairs (Obviously got a wrong species then didn't they :drunk: )

Avicularia spp do have urtricating hairs


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F1refly wrote: ... After going through book 2 of the International Wildlife Encyclopedia, I came across something interesting. The original Bird Eater, Avicularia avicularia. This is the same species as the one described by Maria Merian. The book describes them as having Irritating Hairs (Obviously got a wrong species then didn't they :drunk: ), ...

They do possess urticating bristles (not hair), but on the sides of their abdomens, not the top. They do not flick the bristles like most other New World tarantulas, but actually rub the bristles off with their rear legs and attempt to rub them into their prey's hide. It's not a terribly efficient system, however.

F1refly wrote: ... a potent venom which damaged the curator of the London Zoos hand so badly that it left a finger permanantly crooked :silly: ...

Their venom has been mentioned by several others as well. There is a story about a Trinidad banana picker who was bitten on the hand and lost several day's work because of the intense pain and inflammation. I've often wondered how much Trinidad rum he consumed in the process, and whether his work loss was more due to the tarantula bite or the rum consumption!

And, one must wonder if the damaged finger of the zoo keeper was the direct result of the tarantula's venom (unlikely since tarantulas' venom is a neurotoxin, not proteolytic like rattlesnake venom) or of a secondary infection (much more likely).

F1refly wrote: ... and reaching a length of 7 inchs (never worked with avics so can't comment). ...

While most A. avicularia in the hobby and industry are only about half that size I have seen a few real giants that had at least 6" (15 cm) DLS. So, it's not impossible, just very rare.

I'll have to start looking for a copy of the book. Thanks for the review.

Very old so I don't know if you'll have much luck finding one. Surprised at the quality of the pictures though for 1960 something.

Here are the scans of the picture page as promised:








According to the text, the picture of the Avic with it's baby is life size