Bug card No. 0177 of 1,500
Brazilian black tarantula
Grammostola pulchra
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersRainforests and jungles8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin
The Brazilian black tarantula is a big, hairy spider that is black all over. It is famous for being calm and gentle. If something bothers it, it would much rather run away than fight.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Brazil, in South America
What does it eat?
It eats insects like crickets, mealworms and cockroaches.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Brazilian black tarantula about 1.5 km/h (0.93 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It grows very slowly. It can take up to eight years to become a grown-up.
2
With its legs spread out, a big one can be about 18 centimetres across.
3
The females live many years longer than the males.
4
Young ones like to dig burrows to hide in.
5
Many spiders sold as Brazilian blacks are really a lookalike from Uruguay that was only named in 2015.
you asked
Most asked questions about Brazilian black tarantula
?What does the Brazilian black tarantula eat?
Insects such as crickets, mealworms and cockroaches.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Grammostola pulchra
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Theraphosidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Theraphosidae
- Lives on
- South America
- Also known as
- Brazilian black
Where the facts come from
- Grammostola pulchra (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by André Karwath aka Aka. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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