What is the largest spider species on each continent?

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Are there any arachnologists in the audience?

I'm wondering what the largest spider on each continent is and the internet is being very unhelpful. I keep getting lists of "the world's most venomous spiders" or "scariest spiders". The lists of the world's biggest spiders that pop up have no citations and seem dodgy. Can there really be no list of the largest spiders by continent out there?

What I've got so far is:
1. Antarctica: Not applicable as the continent is spider-less.
2. South America: Goliath bird-eating spider

I can't find a definitive candidate for the other continents. Does anybody have any contenders? Any thoughts will be valued.
 
there will be some discrepancies in what constitutes "largest". For example, Nephila have quite small bodies but long legs so are very large overall, but the mygalomorphs are obviously much "larger" in mass.

In Australia the largest mygalomorph (and hence largest spider) is the eastern or whistling tarantula Phlogius crassipes, which is pretty huge, having a legspan up to 22cm and body-length of up to 9cm.

The largest Australian Nephila is the northern orb-weaver N. pilipes. Female body-length is 4cm and leg-span around 15cm.
 
Chlidonias said:
there will be some discrepancies in what constitutes "largest". For example, Nephila have quite small bodies but long legs so are very large overall, but the mygalomorphs are obviously much "larger" in mass.

In Australia the largest mygalomorph (and hence largest spider) is the eastern or whistling tarantula Phlogius crassipes, which is pretty huge, having a legspan up to 22cm and body-length of up to 9cm.

The largest Australian Nephila is the northern orb-weaver N. pilipes. Female body-length is 4cm and leg-span around 15cm.
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Thanks for the Australia info. What is the biggest spider in New Zealand? Do you have tarantulas or any Nephila there?
 
we have a number of endemic mygalomorphs (tunnelwebs and trapdoor spiders, some of which get quite large), occasional wind-blown Nephila from Australia, and also the endemic cave spider which has a body-length of 3cm and leg-span of 13-15cm.

The largest by mass is one of the tunnelwebs, either the black tunnelweb Porrhothele antipodiana or the banded tunnelweb Hexathele hochstetteri, which have body-lengths of 2-3cm. The leg-span is only around 5cm or so because they have short legs in relation to their bulk. They are scary spiders because they tend to react aggressively to disturbance and have a painful (although non-dangerous) bite.
 
In Africa I imagine it would be one of the Baboon spiders, also mygalomorphs.

:p

Hix
 
in Asia, the largest spider is probably the cave-dwelling Giant Huntsman Heteropoda maxima from Laos. Apparently it has the largest leg-span of any spider worldwide at up to 30cm.

In terms of mass, there are a lot of really big mygalomorphs in southeast and southern Asia, so I wouldn't have a clue which would be the biggest out of them.
 
What I've read from biologists in R. Macedonia, that there is a variety of larger spiders here, or in Southern Europe in general, like the so called European tarantulas like for example Lycosa tarantula. Other big European spider would be Nephila species, Eresus kollari, some cave spiders and pseudoscorpions.
 
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Nikola Chavkosk said:
Other big European spider would be Nephila species, Eresus kollari, some cave spiders and pseudoscorpions.
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I'm not sure about what do you mean. Eresus (various species) females maybe can be the most massive European spiders, altough by legspan are much smaller than Lycosa. There are no Nephila in Europe. Not sure about what are the "cave spiders". And pseudoscorpions are not spiders neither big - the biggest European species, Garypus beauvoisi, is only 5 millimetres lenght, and most species sizes one or two millimeters.
 
Kakapo said:
I'm not sure about what do you mean. Eresus (various species) females maybe can be the most massive European spiders, altough by legspan are much smaller than Lycosa. There are no Nephila in Europe. Not sure about what are the "cave spiders". And pseudoscorpions are not spiders neither big - the biggest European species, Garypus beauvoisi, is only 5 millimetres lenght, and most species sizes one or two millimeters.
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Oh I tought there are European nephila, since I have, on two occassions, saw large colorful (with elongated abdomen) spiders in nature of R. Macedonia several years ago, and one was sitting on a web above a well. Certainly it should be another genus.
Yes I read that most cave spiders are small, but I've read of some big hairy spiders hiding in the rock crevices in the wilderness here (on a news), not aware of their genus.
I know that pseudoscorpions are not true spiders, but are yet closest to spiders and scorpions, I guess. I have just mentioned them because of this reason. Not aware of their real size though.

I also saw an European black widow spider female on two ocassions, and it was quite large. One was in a toilet at faculty.
 
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