Find out about the biggest and most dangerous creepy crawlies!

 

Photograph courtesy

of Gary Coxon.

The Biggest Creepy Crawlies

It is hard to be certain which creepy crawlies are really the biggest because a lot of them are hard to find and we don't know a lot about them. Scientists believe that there are thousands, if not millions, of creepy crawlies that we haven't even discovered yet. A lot of creepy crawlies have not been weighed or measured yet. The creepy crawlies I have listed below are those that I think are longest or heaviest after doing lots of reading up on the subject. I might not be completely right so I use words like 'probably' quite a lot.

What is the biggest insect in the world?

There are several insects that might be considered the worlds largest insect. These are some of the contenders.

The longest insect in the world is probably a type of stick insect, either the Malaysian Giant Stick Insect (Phobaeticus serratipes), which lives in Malaysia and Singapore, or the Titan Stick Insect (Acrophylla titan) from Australia, which is also known as the Giant Brown Stick Insect. These insects usually grow to between 20 and 30 centimetres long but some are reported to be up to 55 centimetres in length!

The heaviest insects in the world are thought to be Titan Beetles (Titanus giganteus), Giant Wetas (Deinacrida spp.) and Goliath Beetles (Goliathus spp.).
Titan Beetles come from South America and are also known as South American Longhorn Beetles. They live in the Amazon rainforest and can grown to between 15 and 20 cm long. They normally weigh about 35g.
Giant Wetas come from New Zealand where they live in forests and scrubland. There are 11 different species, the largest of which is the Little Barrier Island Weta (Deinacrida heteracantha) or Wetapunga as it is known by the local people. The Wetapunga usually weighs 20 - 30g but one was found to weigh 70g!
Goliath Beetles live in the African rainforest and grow to be about 13cm long. Some species of Goliath Beetle are thought to weigh up to 100g!

What is the biggest millipede in the world?

The worlds biggest type of millipede is thought to be the Giant African Millipede (Archispirostreptus gigas). They often grow to be 30cm long but the Guiness Book of Records documents one Giant African Millipede that was 38.7cm long! Miley from the roadshow is this type of millipede. They come from West Africa where local people call them Chongololos. They are also known as Giant Black Millipedes because of their dark colouring.

What is the biggest snail in the world?

The Tiger Snail (Achatina achatina) is probably the biggest snail in the world. It comes from West Africa just like the biggest millipede. It belongs to a group of snails called Giant African Land Snails. The shell of the Tiger Snail typically grows between 15 and 20 cm long. It is also known as the Giant Ghana Snail. Ghana is a country in West Africa.

What is the biggest spider in the world?

The Goliath Bird Eating Spider (Theraphosa blondi) is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, spider in the world. It is a type of tarantula that comes from South America. It can have a leg span of about 30cm when fully grown. Goliath Bird Eating Spiders are aggressive but not very dangerous to humans. Unlike their name suggests, they do not often eat birds, instead they feed on insects, small lizards and rodents, only occasionally taking chicks from ground-nesting birds.They don't build webs like some spiders do, they hunt on the ground instead.
Some spiders build very large webs to catch their prey. Some Nephila spp. spiders have been known to build webs several metres wide.

What is the biggest snake in the world?

There are two snakes which could be considered the biggest snake in the world. These are the Green Anaconda (Eunectes murinus) from South America and the Reticulated Python (Python reticulatus) from South East Asia. These snake are both large constrictors which have been blamed for several human deaths. The Green Anaconda can grow to be about 8 metres long and weighs approximately 250kg. The Reticulated Python sometimes grows to be longer than the Green Anaconda, up to about 10 metres long, but is considerably lighter, weighing in at 'only' 160kg. They can both feed on very large prey, the Green Anaconda takes on animals such as capybara and even crocodiles and the Reticulated Python will eat monkeys and pigs.

Dangerous Creepy Crawlies

There are some creepy crawlies which can be harmful to humans, although most pose no real threat to us. The question of the most dangerous creepy crawly is a hard one to answer. There are many factors to look at such as which have the strongest poison or venom, which bite or sting the most people and which cause the most human deaths. The most venomous creepy crawly might not kill the most people as it may live somewhere where there are no people to kill. Creepy crawlies will usually not try to kill people as the vast majority of them cannot eat something as big as a person. They usually only attack if we get too close and scare them. The animals below are some of the most dangerous creepy crawlies I know of.

What is the most dangerous spider in the world?

The Brazilian Wandering Spider (Phoneutria fera) and the Sydney Funnel Web Spider (Atrax robustus) are amongst the most deadly spiders in the world.
The Brazilian Wandering Spider can be found in South American forests, where in roams the forest floor looking for prey. It is a very aggressive spider and has some of the most toxic venom of all known spiders. Its bite can be very painful and may cause the death of the victim.
The Sydney Funnel Web Spider is also highly venomous and has been linked to several deaths. It can be found in Eastern Australia.
Despite its reputation the Black Widow Spider (Lactrodectus spp.) is not ranked as one of the most dangerous spiders as very few Black Widow bites result in death.

Although most spiders have venom, not many of them are dangerous to humans. In most spiders the venom isn't strong enough to kill a person. Spiders do not always inject venom into someone when they bite. As humans are too big to eat, they often save their venom for their prey items and deliver what is known as a 'dry bite' to warn people off. Very few people actually die from spider bites; those who do are usually old, very young or in poor health already.


What is the most dangerous snake in the world?

The snake with the most toxic venom is the Inland Taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) from Australia. This snake is also known as the Fierce Snake or Small Scaled Snake. A typical bite from this snake contains about 45mg of venom which is enough to kill more than 100 people. Although it is quite an aggressive snake, it rarely bites people as it lives in a small part of Australia where ther aren't very many people about.
The most deaths from snake bites occur in Sri Lanka and are usually caused by the Russell's Viper (Daboia russelii). This snake's venom is deadly and it lives very close to people so bites happen a lot. There are several different types of Russell's Viper, the ones in Sri Lanka are slightly different to those found in India and Burma and they have slightly different venom. This causes a problem because there is only an antivenom for Indian and Burmese Russell's Viper and it doesn't work very well on Sri Lankan Russell's Viper bites. This means more people die from the bites because they can't get proper treatment. It is thought that hundreds of people die from Russell's Viper bites every year.

There are about 3,000 known species of snake, of which approximately 500 are venomous. Most snakes are constrictors. Very few snakes have venom which is deadly to humans. Most dangerous snake bites are caused by vipers, kraits and cobras.