(tense dramatic music)
- [Narrator] In the stillness of dusk,
a young mouse is lost, looking for its home.
But just a few centimeters away,
a hunt has secretly just begun.
This is the Goliath birdeater.
It can't see or smell the mouse very well.
It doesn't have to.
The tarantula makes its move,
but he loses interest because just around the corner,
he senses a bigger, juicier meal.
(tense dramatic music continues)
With deft and deadly silence,
he strikes. (dramatic music)
And now he's got dinner.
(air whooshing)
Despite its name, the Goliath birdeater rarely eats birds.
Mostly lizards, frogs, and mice.
(gentle music)
It can grow to nearly 30 centimeters across.
Its fangs are 2.5 centimeters long.
It is the largest of the 800 known species of tarantulas.
These giants of the jungle are fearsome,
but their true advantage on the hunting grounds
is not their menacing size, it's actually something
they share with the other 799 species of tarantula,
great and small.
These. Tiny hairs, thousands upon thousands of them.
They're called trichobothria.
To the naked eye, they look like a simple coat,
but there's so much more.
They are the cornerstone
of the tarantula's evolutionary success.
These hairs individually, and as a group,
sense the world around them with remarkable precision.
Each and every hair operates like an individual ear
that can hear vibrations in the air and on the ground.
When a creature moves near a tarantula, it pushes the air.
The trichobothria feels the displacement.
A lot of movement means the source
could be a larger predator, and the tarantula will lie low.
But if they move just the right amount,
that could mean a potential meal, or a potential mate.
The spiders can even determine location based on
which hairs on their body have sensed the disturbance.
(tense ominous music)
Some tarantulas can detect air movement
down to 10 millionths of a millimeter.
That's about the width of an atom.
These astonishing trichobothria
also give the tarantula a sense of touch
and trigger the tarantula's reflexes.
If the hairs on the sternum sense an obstacle,
those reflexes kick in.
Its leg joints extend while its muscles contract
seamlessly lifting the tarantula's body over the obstacle.
(gentle inspirational music) It's completely automatic.
It's called body raising and it's one of the reasons
these tarantulas can navigate rough territory so deftly.
This astonishing adaptation
is 380 million years in the making.
(gentle ominous music)
Tarantulas can spin silk,
but they don't build webs like their spider cousins.
They don't need to.
The trichobothria gives them
such a sense of the world around them,
they're better off moving around to hunt.
Sometimes it's best to get touchy-feely.
- [Narrator] Holy bugs, Batman.
The earth is crawling
with all kinds of deadly creepy-crawlies.
And just like anywhere else,
the predators of the microworld take no prisoners.
It's about to get pretty gnarly up in here.
Ever heard of the huntsman spider?
To humans, this arachnid's bite is as lethal as a bee.
There's nothing to worry about, unless you're a grasshopper.
Oh man, to be in the crosshairs
of those bugged-out eyeballs, not a place you'd wanna be.
Does anyone wanna tell him there's a humongous spider,
like an inch away from him?
He must be on his phone.
How does he not- (dramatic music)
Whoa, okay then, never mind. (gentle music)
See what he's doing now with his fangs?
He's pumping venom into his meal to immobilize it.
Spiders digest their food externally,
vomiting enzymes onto their prey,
breaking the bug down to insect soup.
Mm, spidey snacks.
There's plenty more scares along this ride, folks.
You might be wondering why we're showing you
a shot of these sticks?
More than meets the eye.
A praying mantis, decked in camo.
Front legs laced with vicious barbs,
and compound eyes that can each take in 180 degrees,
allowing this bug to see a full 360.
Bad news for unsuspecting prey in the area like this ant,
who appears to be going for a nice stroll.
A stroll that's about to take a deadly toll.
The mantis spots its target and gets into position.
(chuckles) It looks like he's getting into
some kind of ninja pose.
And like any skilled ninja, it is a master
in the art of invisibility.
That poor ant doesn't even see it coming.
That's probably for the best.
(ant squelching) Oh.
Well, yeah. Yeah, well, well, that.
Got your fill?
Hope not, 'cause we got one more for you.
And let me tell you, this dude's a doozy.
Meet Mastigoproctus giganteus.
Okay, sounds a tad technical, right?
Well, if you'd prefer, it also goes by the name vinegaroon.
Vinegaroon, (chuckles) that's fun to say.
But that's as far as the fun goes.
See, this bug happens to be an arachnid too.
It doesn't get the fanfare spiders and scorpions do.
After all, they're pretty rare.
But once you see a vinegaroon, you can't unsee one.
Six legs, eight eyes, a pair of menacing claws,
and a whiplike tail, nightmare fuel.
Now its tail doesn't actually do much,
it's just something it uses to help feel around.
Oh, but where the vinegaroon's tail begins,
at the base there,
is also where the story ends for its prey.
How?
It sprays a substance made of highly acetic acid.
Vinegar, actually. Get it, vinegaroon?
To us, it might smell like french fries,
but to the creatures it kills, it smells like, well, death.
And it can shoot that stuff about a foot in any direction.
Its own built-in toxic super soaker.
The only hope its prey has
is that its eight eyes don't see too clearly.
It uses its front two legs to feel around for fresh food.
When it senses a snack, the claws go to work,
breaking it down until the victim bursts open,
and then eats it like a tube of yogurt, yum.
You don't make it millions of years on this planet
without getting a little weird in order to survive.