Warning: This video of a spider dragging an opossum may be disturbing to some viewers.
A tarantula the size of a dinner plate attacked and killed an opossum in a video captured by researchers that looks like a scene from a horror movie.
Researchers from the University of Michigan shared the video on Thursday along with a paper in “Amphibian & Reptile Conservation” describing the bizarre encounter.
In November of 2016, the team “heard some scrabbling in the leaf litter” during a night survey in the Amazon rainforest, Michael Grundler at University of Michigan said. He and his colleagues then watched a tarantula attack a mouse opossum, striking it in its neck, according to the report. A five-minute struggle ensued, where the opossum, roughly the size of a softball, tried to kick away from the eight-legged insect. The spider ultimately won. Video shows the spider then dragging the opossum away.
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