As part of the NATURE: Deep Jungle series on PBS, the producers profiled amateur arachnologist Martin Nicholas’s search for a legendary chicken-eating spider in South American’s Amazon. Nicholas dropped a tiny camera down spider holes and eventually spotted the huge tarantula, nearly a foot across, that may be new to science. From an interview on the NATURE: Deep Jungle site (photo from BBC Radio 4):
How did you get interested in the chicken-eating spider?
It started a few years back with a letter from a friend in Peru who built power plants. He heard this story of a chicken-eating spider. I love those kinds of stories, they are irresistible. So I had to go to Peru and see if it was true…
Do you keep spiders as pets?
Oh yes. I live in a big converted chapel, and they’ve got one whole end of a hall. I keep, breed, and photograph dozens of species. I always say keeping and feeding 500 tarantulas is cheaper than keeping a single dog!
Link to NATURE page, Link to BBC Radio 4 profile of Nicholas from 2003 (Thanks, Vann Hall!)