Shy, fragile, virtually harmless, tarantulas still can't shake their horror-movie image. Like almost all spiders they are venomous, but they rarely bite people, and there has never been a reliable report of a human death from the venom.
Spiders cannot eat solid food. Instead, they pump digestive fluids into their prey, then suck up the dissolved body parts. A tarantula will sometimes kill a small animal like a snake, frog, or bird, but crickets, beetles, and other insects are more typical prey.
(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "What's So Special About Spiders?," August 1971, National Geographic magazine)
(Text adapted from "Tarantulas," September 1996, National Geographic magazine)
