I Didn’t Know That

Q: How big is the biggest spider?

A: Big enough to cover a dinner plate, according to entomologist Gilbert Waldbauer of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The largest known spiders are the Goliath bird-eating spiders of the coastal rain forests of northeastern South Africa. The largest one known had a leg span of more than 11 inches. The heaviest one known, a female captured in Suriname, weighed 4.3 ounces, easily large enough to subdue a bird. Wood warblers weigh only about 0.35 of an ounce, a scarlet tanager about 1 ounce, and a blue jay about 3.5 ounces.