Gruesome photos show tarantula scoffing down foot-long SNAKE
Scientists say it's the first time a spider's slithery dinner has been seen in the wild
EATING a footlong usually involves dollops of mustard and piles of onions.
But this tarantula was hungry for a 15-inch long snake.
Researchers filmed the stomach-churning moment the spider tucked into its slithery dinner.
A team of scientists in southern Brazil turned over a rock while hoping to photograph the eight-legged creature.
What they saw was a grammostola quirogai tarantula scoffing on an almaden ground snake.
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They said it is the first time a tarantula has ever been seen preying on a snake in the wild.
"Predation of such a large snake in relation to the size of the spider was extremely surprising to us," said Leandro Malta Borges, a graduate student in biology at the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil.
Borges and his colleagues told of their shocking discovery in the journal Herpetology Notes.
The researchers were studying tarantulas in the Serra do Caverá, a rocky, grassy region in the far south of Brazil.
"There are other records of spiders preying on snakes, such as the famous black widow, which has a strong toxin and, besides, rely on the web for capturing," Borges wrote.
But tarantulas don't spin webs to trap prey.
Most likely the snake simply slithered beside the tarantula's rock or tried to use it as a den, offering itself up as an easy lunch, Borges said.
The team said spiders of this species can have fangs very nearly an inch long and could easily subdue the helpless reptile, Live Science reports.
Typically, these tarantulas prey on other spiders and insects or smaller reptiles, amphibians, birds or even mammals.
Once the snake was dead, the spider settled in for a feast.
Spiders digest their prey by liquefying the insides of the victim's body and then slurping up the juices.
It was at this stage of the meal that the tarantula was found.
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