| Heteropoda Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| |
| Heteropoda maxima | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Sparassidae |
| Genus: | Heteropoda Latreille, 1804 |
| Species | |
|
189 accepted species; see text. | |
Heteropoda is a genus of spiders in the family Sparassidae (the huntsman spiders). They are mainly distributed in tropical Asia and Australia, while at least one species, H. venatoria, has a cosmopolitan distribution,[1] and H. variegata occurs in the Mediterranean.[2]
These spiders catch and eat insects, but in a laboratory study one species readily ate fish and tadpoles when offered.[1] H. venatoria has also been known to eat scorpions and bats.[3]
The largest species in the genus, H. maxima, is about 4.6 centimeters long but has a legspan of up to 30 centimeters, making it the largest of any extant spider.[4]
- ^ a b Airamé, S. and P. Sierwald. (2000). Hunting and feeding behavior of one Heteropoda species in lowland rainforest on Borneo (Aranae, Sparassidae). Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine Journal of Arachnology 28(2), 251-53.
- ^ Jager, P. and H. Ono. (2000). Sparassidae of Japan. I. New species of Olios, Heteropoda, and Sinopoda, with notes on some known species (Araneae: Sparassidae: Sparassinae and Heteropodinae). Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine Acta Arachnologica 49(1), 41-60.
- ^ Ross, J., et al. (1982). The life cycle of Heteropoda venatoria (Linnaeus) (Araneae: Heteropodidae). Archived 2017-12-28 at the Wayback Machine Psyche 89, 297-306.
- ^ Iaeger, P. (2001). A new species of Heteropoda (Araneae, Sparassidae, Heteropodinae) from Laos, the largest huntsman spider? Zoosystema 23(3), 461-66.