Is bird eating spider the same like tarantulas?

I think that T belong for other family or suborder? What difrences is between T and bird eating spiders? Or is the same?
How I know for tarantulas belong trapdoor, purseweb and the funnel-web spiders.
Why family Theraphosidae spiders to name for tarantulas?

http://www.arachnology.be/Arachnology.html

This page may be some help in finding the answers to your questions.

cryptly said:

http://www.arachnology.be/Arachnology.html

This page may be some help in finding the answers to your questions.

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Thanks for link.
Are in USA Tarantulas named bird eating spiders? or that is on Europe only?

Birdeating Spider...

The term "birdeating spider" has deep roots in history and causes much horror to the novice who would fathom a tarantula leaping off the ground to catch birds in flight. Sorry to say that this term had entered the hobby with two horns atop itself and has little truth to it.
The term gained nomenclature for itself when a Swiss naturalist visited South America in 1771 and observed a large hairy tarantula consuming a bird. A wood carving and some drawings were made of this unorthodox incident and were taken back to Europe where people just assumed that these beasts eat birds, hence bird eating spider.
It was unthinkable at the time that there were spiders of this size lurking in the shadows of the New World rainforest, chasing birds and natives around.
Today, we can appreciate all the folklore but must realize birdeating spiders are just tropical New World Theraphosids, aboreal or terrestial.
I have seen "birdeating this or that" hastily scribbled on labels of cages at pet stores and inside is a little Avic avic or a baby greenbottle. I can't help but laugh...

Indead Bird eater just means its a BIG mother , You will find even pinktoe sometimes get the name birdeater , a true bird eater in my opinion is a tarantula of over a 8 or 9 inch leg span ,though its very rare for them to actualy eat birds they do just ocasional take chicks from nests

mimic58 said:

Indead Bird eater just means its a BIG mother , You will find even pinktoe sometimes get the name birdeater , a true bird eater in my opinion is a tarantula of over a 8 or 9 inch leg span ,though its very rare for them to actualy eat birds they do just ocasional take chicks from nests

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Actually the first T to be called a bird eater was a pinktoe. I think that avicularia means bird eater. The Woodcarving and drawings that Greg referred to was of an Avic. eating a hummingbird.

Yes I know this story about a Swiss naturalist.
But I want to know can call birtaeting spiders tarantula? Because all spiders from family Theraphosidae are calling tarantulas, but reals tarantulas depends to another family.
Sorry for bad speling :8o

Spiderling LT said:

Yes I know this story about a Swiss naturalist.
But I want to know can call birtaeting spiders tarantula? Because all spiders from family Theraphosidae are calling tarantulas, but reals tarantulas depends to another family.
Sorry for bad speling :8o

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I think you're confusion stems from the difference between Scientific and common names. Birdeater is a subjective term and can be used to refer anything. The word tarantula is a misnomer and originally referred to a wolf spider located near the town of Taranto, Italy.

So what name I shuld call my Lasiodora parahybana?
Tarantula or Birdeating spider?

Call her a tarantula. That is what she is. The word tarantula is more of a common term for Theraphosidae. In other words, they are the same. Spiders in the theraphosidae family have two prong like spinnerettes.

Bird Eater is a common name used to describe T. blondi and the true bird eaters, the avicularia species. Both are South American however only the Avicularia species are the true bird eaters. T. blondi is a terrestrial spider and eat terrestrial animals and insects. They will eat birds, but really only those found on the forest floor. The Avicularia species are basically jumping tree spiders. They are aboreal and prey on aboreal animals and insects including nestlings.

Spiderling LT said:

So what name I shuld call my Lasiodora parahybana?
Tarantula or Birdeating spider?

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Call it a Lasiodora Parahybana or perhaps Judy.

David Burns said:

Call it a Lasiodora Parahybana or perhaps Judy.

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:clap: :clap: :razz:
Nice
Perhaps I will.

check this page out and read the story, very awesome!
http://www.thedailylink.com/australiantarantulas/species/plumipes.html

its about an aussie bird eater

look what said Rick West:

> Are bird eating spiders belong to the same falily like tarantulas? Yes. The name 'birdeating spiders' or 'birdspider' (the same) was given to the large mygalomorph spiders in the family theraphosidae by early explorers who found some of these spiders eating birds both in South American and parts of East Asia. > Are tarantulas the same like bird eating spider? Why? No. Not all of the approximately 855 known spp. of tarantulas are considered to be 'birdspiders' or 'birdeating spiders' for the same reason as the above. Regards, Rick

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Nearly, but not quite.

Nice discussion peeps with several correct ideas, but you were all off just a little. ;P

The term "bird eating spider" ist actually based on an etching by Anna Maria Sibylla Merian, who was born in 1647 in Frankfurt (Germany). She would have been pretty old to do any work in 1771. And in fact, she died long before that in 1717.

The piece of art she created was of what was probably an avicularia avicularia eating a humming bird. Avic avic ist one of the larger aviculariae and could probably eat a small humming bird (chick). The word "avicularia" doesn't actually mean bird eater, but "little bird". So it's not quite clear what is really meant by this name. In Germany we call these spiders "Vogelspinnen" which actually means "bird spider". Think for yourself why they are called this.

The European name for these spiders isn't really too good as it lets them seem like monsters - and very poisonous ones at that. It also gives the impression that they mostly eat birds although insects are the largest portion of their diet, along with small frogs, reptiles and mammels. Birds are probably rather rarely on the menu. However, it is (at least) a unique name for the family of theraphosidae.

The word "tarantula" for theraphosidae ist actually based on a big mistake. Tarantula ist actually the name of a European wolf spider (Lycosa tarentula) which is quite different from theraphosidae, even to a non-expert:
Pic1
Pic2
Pic3

But they are also anatomically quite different. The lungs are completely different and the "fangs" (sorry, don't know the correct English term, in Germany we say "chelizeren") are not parallel but work against each other like pliers. They live in the meditarranien area (southern Europe). Emigrants from these areas (most likely Italy) probably though that the big Spiders of the new world were Tarantulas as they knew them. The name got stuck until today.

Ok, enough smart-arse for today. And please excuse my English... :8o

Best regards,
Chris

It seems to be a little confusing here. Let me explain it. In USA, you call them Tarantulas. That is officially accepted term. But in most of the European countries AFAIK term Tarantula is not valid. The official term is Birdspider. Although people here are also much more familiar with name tarantula, because of TV, movies (mosty US production ).

So, to sum up :
official common name in US: Tarantula
official common name in EU: Birdspider

If you say Birdspider to somebody here in EU, he might not be familiar with it, so when talking to someone, who is not in the hobby, I tell him that I have tarantulas. When talking with some T keeper, we call them Birdspiders.

Cleared enough ?

Raqua said:

It seems to be a little confusing here. Let me explain it. In USA, you call them Tarantulas. That is officially accepted term. But in most of the European countries AFAIK term Tarantula is not valid. The official term is Birdspider. Although people here are also much more familiar with name tarantula, because of TV, movies (mosty US production ).

So, to sum up :
official common name in US: Tarantula
official common name in EU: Birdspider

If you say Birdspider to somebody here in EU, he might not be familiar with it, so when talking to someone, who is not in the hobby, I tell him that I have tarantulas. When talking with some T keeper, we call them Birdspiders.

Cleared enough ?

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I think the name birdspider is dumb. That makes me think of a bird flying around with eight legs, they are all tarantulas why can't you just either call the tarantulas, or call them by their latin name? is that so hard??


-Mattyb

to add to the confusion, I believe, in Asia they are called earth tigers. In India, they are called Tiger spiders. In Australia, I believe they also call them barking spiders, or whistling spiders, in addition to tarantulas. In Africa, I believe they are called baboon spiders.
So, depending on what part of the world you live in, what we refer to as tarantulas can be referred to differently. They are all unofficial names though.

Mattyb said:

I think the name birdspider is dumb. That makes me think of a bird flying around with eight legs, they are all tarantulas why can't you just either call the tarantulas, or call them by their latin name? is that so hard??
-Mattyb

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I didn't made that name up ...
But that is what you will find in any biology literature here as a reference to them. Of course that I use latin names, but non-hobby people are not familiar with them.
BTW. Tarantula is some kind of true spider (Lysosa sp. ??), so what you call them is not the best name too .. ;P

Mattyb said:

I think the name birdspider is dumb. That makes me think of a bird flying around with eight legs, they are all tarantulas why can't you just either call the tarantulas, or call them by their latin name? is that so hard??

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It's not hard but it's just as dumb, if not even dumber than bird spider. A tarantula is a European Wolf spider. Period. There may be many other common names that aren't too clever themselves, but at least they don't use a name that is already taken.

Now don't get me wrong! I don't mind Americans calling them Tarantulas as their common name. But this insistance on "taranturla" being the only true (common) name for these animals seems a little arrogant.

I'll stick to the scientific names. BTW. They are not all Latin, there's a lot of Greek in there as well.

Regards
Chris