The South American Goliath birdeater is the spider of many people's nightmares, but encountering one of the puppy-sized critters in a dark rain forest in Guyana was a dream come true for entomologist Piotr Naskrecki.
The largest spider in the world, the birdeater has a leg span of about 30cm, weighs up to 170g, and hardened tips and claws on its feet that make a clicking sound when it walks.
Naskrecki was looking for katydids the night he encountered a Goliath. He had turned his headlamp off to concentrate on listening when he heard the sound of an animal running in complete darkness.
"I could clearly hear its hard feet hitting the ground and dry leaves crumbling under its weight. I pressed the switch and pointed the light at the source of the sound, expecting to see a small mammal, a possum, a rat maybe," Naskrecki recounted in his blog The Smaller Majority.
"And at first this is what I thought I saw – a big, hairy animal, the size of a rodent."
