The largest living spider is a type of tarantula, the Goliath Bird Eater (Therphosa blondi), which lives in Brazil, Venezuela and French Guiana, and does occasionally eat birds. It attains a mass of as much as 160 grams (5.6 ounces), and the body reaches a length of 12 centimeters (4.7 inches). Including its legs, an adult can cover an entire dinner plate.
The smallest living spider is the Samoan moss spider, Patu marplesi, found in Western Samoa in 1956 by Raymond R. Forster. These spiders are so small as to be almost invisible, 0.46 mm long, roughly the size of a printed period.
A site with links to most spider-related sites on the Web: www.arachnology.be/Arachnology.html
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Last revised: 17 December 2001.