The World's Biggest Spider?

When I saw the link to this entry, I thought, "I bet he's taken a picture with a coin in the shot as well", and I'm glad to say I wasn't disappointed.

That is a very large spider! Nice photography too - you can see the hairs on its legs 'an evryfing.

I had a similar encounter a few years back, which also prompted a picture and a blog post:

http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/archives/00000088.html

...however, despite the inconsistent usage of coinage, I think we can safely say yours is bigger than mine (pffffft).

Unfortunately I didn't take pictures but the Guadaloupe spiders are HUGE compared to that one in the picture... Honest If I hadn't known that there weren't any tarantulas I would have thought that we saw a couple in our room!!!

yea, that's a small spider

mate i've seen a spider as big as a dinner plate over at south Africa. what you've got on the website is nothing comperd to what i saw with my own too eyes.

i saw one bigger than that is South Africa. it was roughly the size of a small dessert plate. even the guy who came to our cabin to get rid of it was scared!

my pet spider is bigger than that...

Good day . 36 year old male.I live in SA and we often have rain spiders as big as adult human hand come into the house. the ones above are very small. Some spiders easily cover the side mirrors of larger cars . Rain spiders dont really bother humans some of them nest indoors ussualy after the rain washes every away outside and they keep your house bug free. You dont get flies and insects around when you have one of these. A month ago We had to get a lady to pull over her car. She had a baby in the backseat and on her side door was a spider bigger than my hand. by the time she pulled over we found a tree branch to slap it off her car after having to convince her we where not bad guys but trying to help. My girlfriend finally came to her window and explained thru the glss. when she got out she nearly fainted at the size of teh spider. My concern was when she takes baby out the car when she stops that she sees it and freaks out for the baby. We slapped it off and it ran into a waterdrain on the curb of the road.... most spiders also appear bigger cause the have long thick hairy legs. which with the body look waaaay bigger.

and btw i believe the guy who mentioned the size of desert plate.... I dont think this was a mine is bigger than yours contest. The pics they have on most the net are not very big spiders. If you have seen a adult tarantula then you can guage spider sizes. though the biggest ones here have the big thick long legs which makes them look far worse than the size of their bodies. however the baboon spider is a bulky little fella. but there are those with longer legs.