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A scientist got quite the surprise during a trip to the rainforest in Guyana.
He thought what he heard would turn out to be a possum or a rat. Instead, it was a puppy-sized spider.
According to Live Science, Piotr Naskrecki was taking a nighttime walk when he heard rustling. It turned out to a spider known as the Goliath birdeater– the world’s largest spider.
Naskrecki told Live Science the spider’s leg span can reach up to a foot– about the size of “a child’s forearm,” with a body the size of “a large fist.”
He said the spider does not pose a threat to humans.
Naskrecki is an entomologist and photographer at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.
