Gigantic tarantula spotted devouring a snake for the first time in the wild!

A tarantula (Grammostola quirogai) chows down on an Almaden ground snake (Erythrolamprus almadensis) in southern Brazil. (Image courtesy: University of Santa Maria)

New Delhi: Everyone has seen spiders spinning a web, trapping their preys – normally consisting of insects, small and big, and other bugs. But foot-long snakes? Never!

Imagine the surprise a team of scientists in southern Brazil experienced, after a search for tarantulas in a forest turned up something completely unexpected.

During their search, the scientists turned over a rock hoping to find a tarantula and instead exposed a gigantic one munching on a snake!

The tarantula, called Grammostola quirogai, was happily gorging on the body of an Almaden ground snake (Erythrolamprus almadensis).

While other species of spider are known to prey on snakes, this is the first time a tarantula has ever been seen eating a snake in the wild. "Predation of such a large snake in relation to the size of the spider was extremely surprising to us," said Leandro Malta Borges, a graduate student in biology at the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil, Live Science reported.

Borges and his colleagues reported their shocking discovery Dec. 3 in the journal Herpetology Notes. The researchers were studying tarantulas in the Serra do Caverá, a rocky, grassy region in the far south of Brazil. Under a rock, they discovered a 15-inch (39 centimeters) snake being eaten by an adult female G. quirogai. This species was formally described last year, Borges said, and previously had been known to exist only in Uruguay.

The Grammostola tarantulas are large-sized arachnids and many of them have been induced to eat snakes in captivity, however, this kind of behaviour has never been seen int he wild before. One of G. quirogai's close relatives, the Chilean rose tarantula (Grammostola rosea) is also a popular aquarium pet, the researchers said.

Another species of spider, the Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) has fed on a viper, but the encounter between the two species was engineered by researchers.

"There are other records of spiders preying on snakes, such as the famous black widow, which has a strong toxin and, besides, rely on the web for capturing," Borges said. But tarantulas don't spin webs to trap prey, Live Science said.

The researchers say that most likely, the snake had slithered by the tarantula's rock or tried to use it as a den.

Using its fangs, which measure up to two centimeters (0.8 inches) long, the tarantula probably attacked the snake, subduing the reptile. Once the snake was dead, the spider began to eat it, the Daily Mail reported.

Spiders digest their food by turning the insides of the animal's body into liquid, before drinking the juices and when the researchers discovered the arachnid, it had already liquefied the snake's front and middle sections.

The middle and front sections of the half-eaten snake were a gooey, half-decomposed mess when researchers arrived.​ (Image courtesy: Leandro Malta Borges)