Sam Marshall doesn’t waste much time. Seconds after stepping into the steaming rain forest of French Guiana, he announces his agenda: “Let’s divide and search for holes with big, hairy legs.”
After all, he hasn’t come to French Guiana for the beaches (muddy and shark infested), the food (cheese, bread, and sardines), or the shopping (none, but credit cards can be used to dig out ticks). He has come for the tarantulas—tarantulas that are big enough to eat birds.
French Guiana, best known for the notorious Devil’s Island penal colony, is the tarantula capital of the world. The size of Indiana, this South American protectorate hosts at least a dozen species, including the world’s largest, Theraphosa blondi, the goliath birdeater. To Marshall, an assistant professor of biology at Hiram College in Ohio, the jungle here is a little bit of heaven. Within minutes, the 45-year-old arachnologist is lying blissfully on his belly, poking a twig down a foot-long tunnel. “Come out!” he calls into the tunnel. “I want to meet you!”
Marshall’s freckled face is inches from a fist-size hole inhabited by a quarter-pound tarantula. Make that an angry quarter-pound tarantula. With a walnut-size abdomen and a head as large as a 50-cent piece, the goliath birdeater has a 12-inch-wide leg span that could cover your face. Or in this case, Marshall’s face.
“Oh! Now she’s kicking!” Marshall says as he shines his headlamp into the hole. “She might be kicking hairs! Can you hear her hissing?”
