I find it really amazing and ironic that the largest spider isn't some monstrous prehistoric beast that went extinct some millions of years ago, but it's just our big ol' tarantula chilling in the present day.
Same energy as the Blue Whale being, as far as we know, the largest animal to have ever existed. Makes it feel more special to be living right now, don't you think?
Me when I try searching Giant Squid, then finding out about Colossal squids, and then assuming and trying to search up about “Greater Squid” or “Biggest Squid species” -kraken- because I only assumed something like so would exist a long time ago
@@chazaqiel2319largest as in heaviest. Not largest as in length. Amphicoelias fragillimus may have been up to 190 feet long, but we may never know. At least with the blue whale, you KNOW they can get upwards of a 100ft in length, and they are by far the heaviest that I’ve heard of.
Iirc, theres actually an ancient giant spider over a foot large, around 2 I think. I forget the species name but I'd also bet it was a monstrous predator either
@@qwopiretyu I've lived in numerous places that are too far north for scorpions. Michigan, Minnesota, Alaska, Maine, Hokkaido Japan. I've also lived in places where they're plentiful. Climate change hasn't happened to the point where their habitable range has moved so far north. they can't handle temperatures below 50F very well, and when half the year is below that, they just won't last.
What's bothered me about the old oxygen argument recently is the existence of coconut crabs. Modern terrestrial arthropods with a leg-span of up to 3 feet, almost a perfect match for the prehistoric arthropods. They have a different respiratory system, sure, with essentially "air gills" near their tail, but to say modern oxygen levels literally can't support large arthropods is clearly false. At the very least, arthropods of that size can clearly evolve a suitable respiratory system. And more importantly, the crabs prove your latter hypothesis. The live predominantly on islands where most other terrestrial role are filled by birds and small lizards that aren't a threat to them. And they see increased predation on islands with humans and feral animals. The lack of competition likely played a much larger role for early terrestrial arthropods than the higher oxygen levels.
I think it’s probably a bit of both a lack of competition and an abundance of oxygen, overall just an ideal condition for land dwelling arthropods to thrive in. Just a thought.
I have watched and read a bunch or stuff about this. Bc I wanted there to be 3ft tarantulas in the past bc that’s cool af. But literally every thing I watch or read said that spider where not ever big bc of the book lungs. I wouldn’t debate it either way, bc I’m not a scientist but it’s a lot of people all saying the same thing.
0:35 Eight Legged Freaks is probably the best giant spider movie. It knows it's based on a corny trope, so it doesn't lean into the horror aspect as much, if at all. It doesn't take itself seriously, and the spiders themselves lean more towards being more comical than scary since the visuals themselves already have scary covered. It's definitely worth the watch.
@victorcadavid5761 it truly is. Any giant spider movie that tries to take itself seriously is pretty bad. Watch it and then come back and say it's not a well done movie.
@@Mercer526 Have U seen *July 12 Johnny Dark Speak* the *GIANT SPIDER MOVIE* meow meow ...? Someone took it seriously enough he got on a $$$ famous TV show $$$ to talk about how the *GIANT SPIDERS* are going 2 kill everyone soon *July 12* meow meow muahahaha imagine man at legs PIKMIN 2 mrow meow yeah no one stands a chance >:33
I love, when the smoking grandma is being whirled around, the ostrich scene and, of course, the very first scene with spider and the cat, making dents/shapes in the ceiling!😂🎉 That movie is a blast.
I am sorry for the climate change, you will soon find that other species can survive the winter and will make your island it's home. I for one can't believe that we have a raccoon problem here in Sweden for example.. 🙄
I tend to find that the coolest spiders are usually the smaller ones anyway. Jumpers, spitters and web casters will always fascinate me far more than any giant tarantula ever will.
There are few new / small youtubers that make good content. Youre one of them! Many use some wierd AI voice and thats just terrible. You are doing it great! (Just a few more pics, video clips would have been great but thats pretty easy to chnage... or maybe there just werent enough clips idk.) Very well made!
I was about to comment on the incorrect info regarding o2 in the air but I watched the whole video before I did. And I am glad I did, good video and good info. Thank You
Arachnophobia is another cult classic. There's a new French movie, I think it's called infestation, that's rather gnarly with some great spider effects.
Incredible video !!! The subject as well as the path and concept of explanation and narration is awesome. Learning things can be so easy thanks to people like you. Volker from Munich
This is so rare for spiders because they’re very soft - they don’t have hard shells so they very easily decay,” Selden said. “It has to be a very special situation where they were washed into a body of water. Normally, they’d float.
A really good sort clear video documentary. I like the fact that things that are not known is mentioned as speculation. I hate it when things that are not fact are treated as facts, one sees that so often these days.
I once read somewhere that their exo skeleton is the limiting factor. An exoskeleton works for small animals only but big animals would not survive in earth's gravity. So huge spiders probably left earth for another planet with half of earth's gravity. ;)
A good review, i always thought the oxygen level was not a complete reason for the large arthropods and competition (or lack of it) being more important. I would imagine spiders with book lungs could grow several times larger (like the giant coconut crabs) but would likely be too slow and heavy to protect themselves against modern predators?
Here's a fun fact: spiders today across the board are larger than ever. Record breaking sizes for multiple species have been found just in the last 20 years And ive personally seen the increase in spider size... the good ol Araneus Diadematus is said to be around 1cm in body length and about 2 with legs... but do you know how many I've seen that are literally TWICE their official listed size? Sometimes even 2.5x the size... That's not to mention giant jumping spiders that are multiple INCHES in size
In theory, the biggest a spider could probably get would be the size of a coconut crab, the biggest land arthropod. They can be 3 feet across (legspan) and weigh 9 pounds. However, that would not work for a spider because its a predator and must move fast. Coconut crabs move slowly on land.
One thing that never gets mentioned is that arthropod size limitations are far more severe than just from less efficient respiration. Even in marine environments, where arthropod gills are as effiicient as vertebrate gills the largest arthropods are dwarfed by the largest fish. The fact is that the exoskeleton is simply far less efficient in terms of weight growth, muscle attachments and structural support, which means arthropods can only grow so big before they can only move extremely slowly due to the weight of their exoskeleton.
Plus the giant spiders would no longer have spidery legs, but short thick legs like elephants. The body mass will increase as a cube when scaling up twice size, but the cross section of legs will only be increased as a square, and be far too weak. You would need to reduce gravity to get giant spiders that still looked like spiders.
@@PhilipSiddall Yeah, I imagine spiders much larger than the Goliath Bird Eater would stop looking like actual spiders and more like something like coconut crabs.
T. blondii is probably the peak evolution for spiders as spiders go. Anything bigger, if it ever existed, won't be a "true" spider (tarantulas aren't true spiders anyway, but you get my point). T. blondii is impressive as it is anyway. I know that first hand since I own one. Marvelous animal.
Wow I had a Red Knee Tarantula years ago that lived for 15 years, she used to sit on my head, and scared off many a visitor. I bet yours is beautiful, too.
@@davidpowell6098 yeah she is. fortunately my wife is into arachnids and other exotics too, so that wasn't an issue when dating (we even joked that she comes after the spider in my priority list, which was a good laugh ahah)
Nice video, keep mixing some bug archaeology videos in please lol. Bet you know mothlightmedia, but for bugs. Could be a good channel concept if you run out of spidercontent or something.
Interesting topic, I really enjoy seeing different species from a evulotionary stand point. There's always a reason for something to evolve the way that it does. Thank you!
i feel like some people dont consider the possibility that we have the largest things so there MUST be something bigger, like the blue whale is the largest animal to have ever existed that we know(factor in length and weight) and its kind of in a league of its own
Thank you for saying Arthropleura is a millipede! I know of a large-ish centipede (no idea of the era), but it's not that large. Would LOVE for us to find enormous centipedes (We already have giants). They are in so many niches, I'm sure we just haven't found any. What is that saying I heard before, something like: "We only found approx. 1% of life that has existed."
I wonder if the expansion of large trees also had an impact on large arthropods? Since trees make ideal sites for arthropods to perform ecdysis. In fact, many arthropods cannot properly molt without something to hang down off of. This boom in sizes would then end as soon as vertebrates developed climbing and/or upright gates allowing them to reach the large bugs at their most vulnerable.
Yes. And that would imply that if any such giant “insects” ever existed such as actual giant spiders, comparable to that of medium sized cars, then that means the trees that would exist on the planet at same time would be MASSIVELY bigger than even that biggest ones in the present day, I’m talking about the average tree heights that could easily reach heights, greater than the average heights of tall buildings or even Skyscrapers _(Yes. _*_Skyscrapers.),_* and that could only be the average, so you can guess what the tallest would be then _(Hint: The tallest tree then would be comparable to the tallest building in the world),_ which would make sense, as these humongous trees would compensate those giant insects who would be too large for our present day with all the oxygen they produce in great quantities and perhaps the giant insects would scale perfectly with these.. Sky-Trees, as insects would still be very small in comparison to tree sizes and heights like how small insects are to trees as we’ve seen in the past 7 or 20 decades and we continue to see in the present day, which means any and _(probably all)_ types of creatures that exist at the same time as those hypothetical trees _(to “science” anyways….)_ would actually be way bigger in body size and heights.. *including Humans.. sit with the implications of all that for a minute **_(especially the Human part, assuming those giant Humans weren’t some dumb apes like the ones we see today that are also quite distinguishable from us modern Humans)._*
@@isaacthedestroyerofstuped7676 Yeah that's an interesting hypothesis. Some fossil tracks of arthropleura appear to show it traversing solid ground and water, leading researchers to believe the millipede was amphibious to some degree. It makes sense that it would have molted in the water since the largest arthropods today are crustaceans that either molt in the water or underground.
I agree with you, not only bugs aren't big anymore because vertebrates are already filling those niches and the biggest spider nowadays eat can get away with that by eating birds, creatures that had an more semiaquatic niche before the extinction of all the other dinosaurs lineage. Although is not impossible that you had spiders as big as the bird eater nowdays preying on other flying raptors not birds
I need to look up those films at the beginning as I saw one when I was around eight years old back in the eighties, never remembered the name. I do remember them coming to Earth on meteors and starting off as normal sized Mexican Redleg tarantulas, they then grew to 50 feet tall and ate humans in kind of a comical way as I remember. Mexican Redleg Tarantulas are one of the best looking spiders around, I had a Chilean Rose some years after seeing the film, not related as it was given to me for free.
I refuse to believe that in a pre-historic world where you could get a dragonfly the size of your forearm, that there weren't giant spiders. Especially when the largest spider we have today, eats birds and survived evolution.
Dragonflies are much older than spiders. They were already pretty large by the beginning of the Carboniferous. Spiders arrived on land late. Thus they started small and stayed small.
@@JPayne95 Yep, there likely is. The "world's largest spider" is just a domesticated pet species selected from the wild due more to their adaptability and docility rather than their size.
It was 4500 years ago, and higher oxygen levels pre-flood helped everything with a chitin exoskeleton grow exceptionally large (with time. Which they had more of.)
I just realized as well that theres not even a point for a spider to be giant (at least a webspinning one) because a web designed to catch flying prey wouldn't be able to support the weight of a spider that weighed like 40 + pounds. If there were giant spiders, then they'd be ground-walking bulky predators that would kill their prey by tackling them much like a constrictor snake. Their webs and venom glands would probably become weaker and useless over time. At that point, why even bother being s spider? That would explain why giant scorpions existed. A giant ground-dwelling spider would basically just be a scorpion without the stabbing tail.
As admittedly sad as I am that there was never a prehistoric spider that was just a gigantic creature from hell, I am glad that those creatures have never, and will never reach that level of sheer size.
Just realised a thing: "Eight legged freaks" title is localised in my country-> To "Arac Attack"wich is probably the first time I feel its the better title.
11:52 As a person who used to live in the Oklahoma countryside, you're grossly underselling scorpions. Seen one in the wild? I've had several in my house! Pest control services in that area get scorpion infestation calls all the time. They also light up under a black light in case you didn't know
Can't put your trust in just a few papers until scientist unanimously agree on it. There's always going to be a scientist who wants to go against the grain as it get's views on their paper. Spiders breathe differently than insects and have book lungs. This likely kept them smaller than insects at the time. The griffinfly was also the largest predatory insect at the time so there seems to be a max size for land invertebrate to be predators. Likely due to how much calories they would burn off. Large spiders are heavy compared to a flying insect.
havent watched the video, but im giving a tldr. Without competition from vertebrates (highly important thing), high oxygen levels, and if we had lower gravity, id say around 1 - 3 feet. Largest land invertebrate are coconut crabs. But thats just from my perspective as a biologist. and having not fully watched the vid, just beginning ill edit this later with my thoughts
There is a lot of problems with trying to piece together history from just fossils. Not all life gets preserved and if spiders had just on the too soft side of a body they may have been completly lost to time as shapes of their bodies might not have been preserved at all... But i do appretiate the look at what we have evidence of at least nature and evolution of spiecies is wild wild journey of adapting to some of the strangest things and enviroments imaginable. Nature is incredible and the life's want to survive yielded fantastic results.
If their prey was small... they wouldn't need to get bigger.. especially if they used poison to subdue food. .. and there were a lot of small prey . Largeness was an adaptive strategy used by many life forms..but it looks like spiders were in the right place to take advantage of small prey. I believe your research but I think Oxygen levels are important but not the only reason for big . I think you are right... spiders didn't need to get big.
research the jaboba fifa i think its called. giant spider in the congo. the natives claim they have their full life span and stuff documented. pretty interesting idk if its true though.
I’m interested in the number of cultures and tribes who have experiences and stories and folklore about giant spiders. I don’t think it’s a far stretch to imagine that reclusive spiders in remote areas could have evolved separately, so not even classified as arachnids.
Possibly, it's also true however that an arachnophobe seeing a large spider might freak out & run away, exaggerate it's size so they seem less cowardly and then the story is further exaggerated in retellings.
@:41 Stop. I have not seen most of these, but Arachnophobia & Eight Legged Freaks are amazing and when you said "probably not", I began twitching with repressed anger. Watch. Those. Two. That said! I would love to know if 'Sting' and especially 'Itsy Bitsy' are worth a view.
I find it really amazing and ironic that the largest spider isn't some monstrous prehistoric beast that went extinct some millions of years ago, but it's just our big ol' tarantula chilling in the present day.
Same energy as the Blue Whale being, as far as we know, the largest animal to have ever existed.
Makes it feel more special to be living right now, don't you think?
@@chazaqiel2319except for yo mo- yeah it really does
Me when I try searching Giant Squid, then finding out about Colossal squids, and then assuming and trying to search up about “Greater Squid” or “Biggest Squid species” -kraken-
because I only assumed something like so would exist a long time ago
@@chazaqiel2319largest as in heaviest. Not largest as in length. Amphicoelias fragillimus may have been up to 190 feet long, but we may never know. At least with the blue whale, you KNOW they can get upwards of a 100ft in length, and they are by far the heaviest that I’ve heard of.
Iirc, theres actually an ancient giant spider over a foot large, around 2 I think. I forget the species name but I'd also bet it was a monstrous predator either
Not only is the video interesting, but the narration isn't some awful AI voice. Thank you for that!
I second that, god those AI voices really ruin the video I feel.
@@LukeEvzydepends on the content. If the creator doesnt speak english well its fair, many people cant stand accents.
@@andyhug90 if the creator wants it in English they should hire an English speaking person.
Totally agree I switch off really fast as soon as I hear AI
AI generated content is almost always surface level information of things with nothing new or just outright misinformation.
Eight legged freaks is a certified classic.
So underrated. Gotta love cheesy b listers lol
Preach my friend!
I love the ostrich scene!😂😂😂🎉🎉🎉
As is Arachnophobia.
@@MrGul also Ice Spiders was pretty good 😅
"I bet several of you have never seen scorpions in the wild"
* laughs in way too far north *
Buddy, I got some awful news about climate change and habitable range
@@qwopiretyu I've lived in numerous places that are too far north for scorpions. Michigan, Minnesota, Alaska, Maine, Hokkaido Japan. I've also lived in places where they're plentiful. Climate change hasn't happened to the point where their habitable range has moved so far north. they can't handle temperatures below 50F very well, and when half the year is below that, they just won't last.
Actually in some parts of Texas spiders are kinda rare and scorpions are less common to but they can be found pretty well
@@qwopiretyu I'm in northern Michigan. Seen some big spiders, but no scorpions. I'll bet you my life savings they won't be here in my lifetime
I saw 1 in East Tennessee about 20 years ago
What's bothered me about the old oxygen argument recently is the existence of coconut crabs. Modern terrestrial arthropods with a leg-span of up to 3 feet, almost a perfect match for the prehistoric arthropods. They have a different respiratory system, sure, with essentially "air gills" near their tail, but to say modern oxygen levels literally can't support large arthropods is clearly false. At the very least, arthropods of that size can clearly evolve a suitable respiratory system. And more importantly, the crabs prove your latter hypothesis. The live predominantly on islands where most other terrestrial role are filled by birds and small lizards that aren't a threat to them. And they see increased predation on islands with humans and feral animals. The lack of competition likely played a much larger role for early terrestrial arthropods than the higher oxygen levels.
same here - glad to know better now
I was going to essentially say the same thing. Glad to know I'm not the only one thinking this.
Perhaps it has something to do with the significantly higher CO2 levels?
I think it’s probably a bit of both a lack of competition and an abundance of oxygen, overall just an ideal condition for land dwelling arthropods to thrive in. Just a thought.
I have watched and read a bunch or stuff about this. Bc I wanted there to be 3ft tarantulas in the past bc that’s cool af. But literally every thing I watch or read said that spider where not ever big bc of the book lungs. I wouldn’t debate it either way, bc I’m not a scientist but it’s a lot of people all saying the same thing.
This thumbnail is pure nightmare fuel
And I love it
50s giant creature features were and are some of the best stuff to come out of Hollywood
it's from The Giant Spider Invasion, the MST3K episode mocking it is free on TH-cam
How do you know that it isn't friendly and protective?
Yknow, im not quite sure. I think it's the giant mandables for me?
0:35 Eight Legged Freaks is probably the best giant spider movie. It knows it's based on a corny trope, so it doesn't lean into the horror aspect as much, if at all. It doesn't take itself seriously, and the spiders themselves lean more towards being more comical than scary since the visuals themselves already have scary covered. It's definitely worth the watch.
You just said which one was the best and then proceed to give us a full detailed list of reasons why one should stay away from it.
@victorcadavid5761 it truly is. Any giant spider movie that tries to take itself seriously is pretty bad. Watch it and then come back and say it's not a well done movie.
@@Mercer526 Have U seen *July 12 Johnny Dark Speak* the *GIANT SPIDER MOVIE* meow meow ...? Someone took it seriously enough he got on a $$$ famous TV show $$$ to talk about how the *GIANT SPIDERS* are going 2 kill everyone soon *July 12* meow meow muahahaha imagine man at legs PIKMIN 2 mrow meow yeah no one stands a chance >:33
I love, when the smoking grandma is being whirled around, the ostrich scene and, of course, the very first scene with spider and the cat, making dents/shapes in the ceiling!😂🎉 That movie is a blast.
Yeah, its one of my top favorites!
good video man surprised youre not a big creator, liked and commented for the algorithm 👍
I can't really express how happy I am to be living in Ireland in 2025. The worst things we have here are mosquitos and ants.
Yeah and not to long ago you had like….a single snake
Those midges will eat you alive in the summer.
I am sorry for the climate change, you will soon find that other species can survive the winter and will make your island it's home. I for one can't believe that we have a raccoon problem here in Sweden for example.. 🙄
Production value is actually really good for such a small channel. Keep up the good work!
This has bugged (sorry) me for such a long time. Thank you algoryhtm for getting me here
I tend to find that the coolest spiders are usually the smaller ones anyway. Jumpers, spitters and web casters will always fascinate me far more than any giant tarantula ever will.
Live in a house with thousands of spiders, including redback and trapdoor, who come inside to hunt, never been bitten
Actually in some parts of Texas spiders are kinda rare and scorpions are less common to but they can be found pretty well
Arachniphobia with John Goodman is a blast
It's just nothing but anti spider propaganda.
He was channeling John Wayne!
As far as I’m aware, the largest spider in the world is a giant huntsman with a leg span of 30cm, which lives in deep caves.
There are few new / small youtubers that make good content. Youre one of them! Many use some wierd AI voice and thats just terrible. You are doing it great! (Just a few more pics, video clips would have been great but thats pretty easy to chnage... or maybe there just werent enough clips idk.) Very well made!
Just received a new subscriber my boy!!!! Dope video man
Literally all those movies you showed are goated
i LOVE eight legged freaks, its hilarious
Eh, hold on one minute, what about Spider-Man?
What about Man-Spider?
@@BatmanSeRiedeTidon’t you mean the human spider?
the giant enemy spider
I was about to comment on the incorrect info regarding o2 in the air but I watched the whole video before I did. And I am glad I did, good video and good info. Thank You
Eight-legged Freaks is worth a watch.
Arachnophobia is another cult classic. There's a new French movie, I think it's called infestation, that's rather gnarly with some great spider effects.
Amazing video, very insightful
Incredible video !!!
The subject as well as the path and concept of explanation and narration is awesome.
Learning things can be so easy thanks to people like you.
Volker from Munich
You made this so interesting. I wasn't expecting to be so hooked.
The latter half was really interesting! A breath of fresh air from the old "every contemporary animal has a giant prehistoric version"
This is so rare for spiders because they’re very soft - they don’t have hard shells so they very easily decay,” Selden said. “It has to be a very special situation where they were washed into a body of water. Normally, they’d float.
Spiders right now are the only land/air filter feeders.
Filter feeder is a stretch but I would agree anyway because it’s cool to think of it like that
Actually in some parts of Texas spiders are kinda rare and scorpions are less common to but they can be found pretty well
stuck in the bathroom rn, 3 grown huntsman spiders on the door pull up bruh. they jumpin me.
ah they won’t hurt ya great pest control mate🇦🇺
A really good sort clear video documentary. I like the fact that things that are not known is mentioned as speculation. I hate it when things that are not fact are treated as facts, one sees that so often these days.
I once read somewhere that their exo skeleton is the limiting factor. An exoskeleton works for small animals only but big animals would not survive in earth's gravity.
So huge spiders probably left earth for another planet with half of earth's gravity. ;)
A good review, i always thought the oxygen level was not a complete reason for the large arthropods and competition (or lack of it) being more important. I would imagine spiders with book lungs could grow several times larger (like the giant coconut crabs) but would likely be too slow and heavy to protect themselves against modern predators?
Here's a fun fact: spiders today across the board are larger than ever. Record breaking sizes for multiple species have been found just in the last 20 years
And ive personally seen the increase in spider size... the good ol Araneus Diadematus is said to be around 1cm in body length and about 2 with legs... but do you know how many I've seen that are literally TWICE their official listed size? Sometimes even 2.5x the size...
That's not to mention giant jumping spiders that are multiple INCHES in size
Nicely narrated :)
In theory, the biggest a spider could probably get would be the size of a coconut crab, the biggest land arthropod. They can be 3 feet across (legspan) and weigh 9 pounds. However, that would not work for a spider because its a predator and must move fast. Coconut crabs move slowly on land.
4:55: As a tarantula keeper, I wanna pet this critter! He/she looks so fluffy.🥰
No one gaf
I had one. Noooo you don't.
Thank you for easing my nightmares a little.
Hey look, T. blondii is still really impressive, she's still a huuuge spider! Fabulous video btw
You don’t see many scary bugs - laughs in Australian
One thing that never gets mentioned is that arthropod size limitations are far more severe than just from less efficient respiration. Even in marine environments, where arthropod gills are as effiicient as vertebrate gills the largest arthropods are dwarfed by the largest fish. The fact is that the exoskeleton is simply far less efficient in terms of weight growth, muscle attachments and structural support, which means arthropods can only grow so big before they can only move extremely slowly due to the weight of their exoskeleton.
Plus the giant spiders would no longer have spidery legs, but short thick legs like elephants. The body mass will increase as a cube when scaling up twice size, but the cross section of legs will only be increased as a square, and be far too weak. You would need to reduce gravity to get giant spiders that still looked like spiders.
@@PhilipSiddall Yeah, I imagine spiders much larger than the Goliath Bird Eater would stop looking like actual spiders and more like something like coconut crabs.
T. blondii is probably the peak evolution for spiders as spiders go. Anything bigger, if it ever existed, won't be a "true" spider (tarantulas aren't true spiders anyway, but you get my point).
T. blondii is impressive as it is anyway. I know that first hand since I own one. Marvelous animal.
Wow I had a Red Knee Tarantula years ago that lived for 15 years, she used to sit on my head, and scared off many a visitor. I bet yours is beautiful, too.
@@davidpowell6098 yeah she is. fortunately my wife is into arachnids and other exotics too, so that wasn't an issue when dating (we even joked that she comes after the spider in my priority list, which was a good laugh ahah)
Fascinating. Subscribed.
glad you’re potentially making some money talking about your passion and educating others about it, i’m jelly
I love how you add nuance to a common scientific misconception
Great video, I enjoyed it a lot! 🙂
I live in Texas and I agree that scorpions are about, but rarely seen.
Nice video, keep mixing some bug archaeology videos in please lol. Bet you know mothlightmedia, but for bugs. Could be a good channel concept if you run out of spidercontent or something.
Interesting topic, I really enjoy seeing different species from a evulotionary stand point. There's always a reason for something to evolve the way that it does. Thank you!
My Pikachu evolved into Raichu with a thunder stone, but othe than that, evolution is a lie bro
i feel like some people dont consider the possibility that we have the largest things so there MUST be something bigger, like the blue whale is the largest animal to have ever existed that we know(factor in length and weight) and its kind of in a league of its own
Could you force gigantism with an artificial atmosphere in a sealed chamber with higher O2 levels?
Thanks for the video. An interesting collage of theories and thoughts
No megs no giant spiders .... im going bed :( ... just kidding This was good bro!
Thank you for saying Arthropleura is a millipede! I know of a large-ish centipede (no idea of the era), but it's not that large. Would LOVE for us to find enormous centipedes (We already have giants). They are in so many niches, I'm sure we just haven't found any. What is that saying I heard before, something like: "We only found approx. 1% of life that has existed."
I wonder if the expansion of large trees also had an impact on large arthropods? Since trees make ideal sites for arthropods to perform ecdysis. In fact, many arthropods cannot properly molt without something to hang down off of.
This boom in sizes would then end as soon as vertebrates developed climbing and/or upright gates allowing them to reach the large bugs at their most vulnerable.
Yes. And that would imply that if any such giant “insects” ever existed such as actual giant spiders, comparable to that of medium sized cars, then that means the trees that would exist on the planet at same time would be MASSIVELY bigger than even that biggest ones in the present day, I’m talking about the average tree heights that could easily reach heights, greater than the average heights of tall buildings or even Skyscrapers _(Yes. _*_Skyscrapers.),_* and that could only be the average, so you can guess what the tallest would be then _(Hint: The tallest tree then would be comparable to the tallest building in the world),_ which would make sense, as these humongous trees would compensate those giant insects who would be too large for our present day with all the oxygen they produce in great quantities and perhaps the giant insects would scale perfectly with these.. Sky-Trees, as insects would still be very small in comparison to tree sizes and heights like how small insects are to trees as we’ve seen in the past 7 or 20 decades and we continue to see in the present day, which means any and _(probably all)_ types of creatures that exist at the same time as those hypothetical trees _(to “science” anyways….)_ would actually be way bigger in body size and heights.. *including Humans.. sit with the implications of all that for a minute **_(especially the Human part, assuming those giant Humans weren’t some dumb apes like the ones we see today that are also quite distinguishable from us modern Humans)._*
@@isaacthedestroyerofstuped7676 Yeah that's an interesting hypothesis. Some fossil tracks of arthropleura appear to show it traversing solid ground and water, leading researchers to believe the millipede was amphibious to some degree. It makes sense that it would have molted in the water since the largest arthropods today are crustaceans that either molt in the water or underground.
makes sense
some o' them movies you showed at the beginning tho are actually a bunch of fun
Great video!
I agree with you, not only bugs aren't big anymore because vertebrates are already filling those niches and the biggest spider nowadays eat can get away with that by eating birds, creatures that had an more semiaquatic niche before the extinction of all the other dinosaurs lineage. Although is not impossible that you had spiders as big as the bird eater nowdays preying on other flying raptors not birds
Actually in some parts of Texas spiders are kinda rare and scorpions are less common to but they can be found pretty well
I need to look up those films at the beginning as I saw one when I was around eight years old back in the eighties, never remembered the name. I do remember them coming to Earth on meteors and starting off as normal sized Mexican Redleg tarantulas, they then grew to 50 feet tall and ate humans in kind of a comical way as I remember. Mexican Redleg Tarantulas are one of the best looking spiders around, I had a Chilean Rose some years after seeing the film, not related as it was given to me for free.
Excellent video. Easy subscribe
Great video 🕷
I refuse to believe that in a pre-historic world where you could get a dragonfly the size of your forearm, that there weren't giant spiders.
Especially when the largest spider we have today, eats birds and survived evolution.
Dragonflies are much older than spiders. They were already pretty large by the beginning of the Carboniferous. Spiders arrived on land late. Thus they started small and stayed small.
There is certainly a high chance of giant spiders existing, even today, there could be something deep in the Congo that's bigger than the goliath.
@@JPayne95 Yep, there likely is. The "world's largest spider" is just a domesticated pet species selected from the wild due more to their adaptability and docility rather than their size.
Perhaps they haven't discovered one yet, we are talking hundreds of millions of years, where we have been around for a fraction of that.
If there aren’t any “giant spiders” I will be sure to make one
It was 4500 years ago, and higher oxygen levels pre-flood helped everything with a chitin exoskeleton grow exceptionally large (with time. Which they had more of.)
Well executed Video!
There’s mad scientists in America using high oxygen environments to grow giant cockroaches.
0:46 Eight Legged Freaks is definitely worth the watch!
Come out in 2002, features David Arquette, Scarlett Johansson, Doug E. Doug, and Leon Rippy!
Sting looks like an ok movie btw.
Recent photo of the spider eating the possum...TERRIFYING
4:25 looks like “cousin IT” 😂
The movie "Big Ass Spider" is amazing!
11:10 "Write that down! Write that down!"
Now I know what I should write as my thesis 😈😈😈
It's quite astonishing how many of these creatures names palaeontologists took directly from the video game Ark over the last couple of centuries.
I just realized as well that theres not even a point for a spider to be giant (at least a webspinning one) because a web designed to catch flying prey wouldn't be able to support the weight of a spider that weighed like 40 + pounds. If there were giant spiders, then they'd be ground-walking bulky predators that would kill their prey by tackling them much like a constrictor snake. Their webs and venom glands would probably become weaker and useless over time. At that point, why even bother being s spider? That would explain why giant scorpions existed. A giant ground-dwelling spider would basically just be a scorpion without the stabbing tail.
Ground dwelling spiders already exist
But they're quite small
As admittedly sad as I am that there was never a prehistoric spider that was just a gigantic creature from hell, I am glad that those creatures have never, and will never reach that level of sheer size.
SPOODERS!!!
Just realised a thing:
"Eight legged freaks" title is localised in my country->
To "Arac Attack"wich is probably the first time I feel its the better title.
That would look pretty cool. You'd need a bigger can of bug spray like a 747, be pretty cool though.
Great video, thank you
11:52 As a person who used to live in the Oklahoma countryside, you're grossly underselling scorpions. Seen one in the wild? I've had several in my house! Pest control services in that area get scorpion infestation calls all the time. They also light up under a black light in case you didn't know
6:23 this is what 10mm is for..
I guess the question is how did these few giant insects breath? Did they evolve any adaptations to the assist like proto lungs?
Can't put your trust in just a few papers until scientist unanimously agree on it. There's always going to be a scientist who wants to go against the grain as it get's views on their paper. Spiders breathe differently than insects and have book lungs. This likely kept them smaller than insects at the time. The griffinfly was also the largest predatory insect at the time so there seems to be a max size for land invertebrate to be predators. Likely due to how much calories they would burn off. Large spiders are heavy compared to a flying insect.
adding a comment for the algorithm because the video deserves it: AI, chat gpt, shorts. idk what else is trendy
You can tell it's not AI when the narrator takes breaths.
havent watched the video, but im giving a tldr. Without competition from vertebrates (highly important thing), high oxygen levels, and if we had lower gravity, id say around 1 - 3 feet. Largest land invertebrate are coconut crabs. But thats just from my perspective as a biologist. and having not fully watched the vid, just beginning ill edit this later with my thoughts
There is a lot of problems with trying to piece together history from just fossils.
Not all life gets preserved and if spiders had just on the too soft side of a body they may have been completly lost to time as shapes of their bodies might not have been preserved at all...
But i do appretiate the look at what we have evidence of at least nature and evolution of spiecies is wild wild journey of adapting to some of the strangest things and enviroments imaginable. Nature is incredible and the life's want to survive yielded fantastic results.
Great stuff, what's the first movie clip you showed near the start from?
@@samarkand1585 Oh that one is from Kong: Skull Island from 2017.
Eight Legged Freaks and Arachnophobia are my childhood favorites
A giant centipede would be nice.
If their prey was small... they wouldn't need to get bigger.. especially if they used poison to subdue food. .. and there were a lot of small prey . Largeness was an adaptive strategy used by many life forms..but it looks like spiders were in the right place to take advantage of small prey. I believe your research but I think Oxygen levels are important but not the only reason for big . I think you are right... spiders didn't need to get big.
this is such a good video
research the jaboba fifa i think its called. giant spider in the congo. the natives claim they have their full life span and stuff documented. pretty interesting idk if its true though.
I am at 53 seconds in and I can confess: i did not click this video. Something evil inside me clicked this video. I am an hostage
Thanks, that was interesting.
Spinnen sind die Anpassung der Skorpione an die dritte Dimension ! 😁
I’m interested in the number of cultures and tribes who have experiences and stories and folklore about giant spiders. I don’t think it’s a far stretch to imagine that reclusive spiders in remote areas could have evolved separately, so not even classified as arachnids.
Possibly, it's also true however that an arachnophobe seeing a large spider might freak out & run away, exaggerate it's size so they seem less cowardly and then the story is further exaggerated in retellings.
@@Neion8true but arachnophobes genuinely mistake a 2 inch spider for 5+
Fear can make stuff appear much more imposing than it really is
@:41 Stop. I have not seen most of these, but Arachnophobia & Eight Legged Freaks are amazing and when you said "probably not", I began twitching with repressed anger. Watch. Those. Two. That said! I would love to know if 'Sting' and especially 'Itsy Bitsy' are worth a view.
Bro i would literally die of a heart attack if i saw a spider that big above me at 0:32
Spiders can grow to the size of a volkswagon beetle (excluding the legs) and run and roll at speeds of 790 feet per second.
Yay reverse-slander of Megarachne ;w;