This purple poisonous spider paralyzes its victim after it lands on a leaf. A hiker was shocked to discover this scene in Coorg, Karnataka, India.
He discovered the purple poisonous spider while it was injecting venom into the body of the yellow-bellied frog. The frog weakly tries to escape from the spider.
The hiker said: “This is one of those unbelievable moments I came across while photographing yellow bellied frogs. The hunter spider has done the incredible thing by hunting a meal that is many times larger than its body size.”
Science student Sujay Shah recorded the moment a hunter spider eats its prey in a house in Jalpaiguri, India, Sun reported on October 1. “I was very excited knowing that I was witnessing a rather rare sight in the natural world,” he said.
Shah said, after observing for about a minute, he left to let things happen naturally. An hour later, when he returned, they were gone. “I don’t want to interrupt the meal. Hope the spider enjoys its dinner,” Shah said.
“I have seen many people kill spiders and other insects because they find them ‘scary’, or because they are afraid of poisonous insects. I think we should not harm every creature we do not like or harm living beings. things without knowing much about it,” he added.
Jason Dunlop and Peter Jager, two spider experts at the Berlin Museum of Natural History and the Senckenberg Research Institute, both identified it as a hunter spider. “In general large spiders are capable of eating small vertebrates such as frogs, birds, mice, lizards, even snakes if given the opportunity. But this does not happen often, most spiders usually eat. insects and none of them specialize in eating frogs,” Dunlop said.
Hunter spiders are large, their stride can be up to 30 cm. They live in warm tropical climates in Australia, Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Mediterranean basin.
Despite their large size, hunter spiders are able to skillfully run up to near-vertical surfaces, according to the Queensland Museum. They come out at night, crawling on tree trunks and the ground in search of medium-sized prey such as cockroaches, caterpillars, and moths. They also help catch pests in the home.
Hunter spiders like to hide in crevices, such as under tree bark. The undersides of the last leg joints, including the tips of the feet, are covered with thick hair. This helps them cling firmly to surfaces as well as hold onto their prey.