http://www.cairns.com.au/article/200...ocal-news.html

The photographer who took these graphic images of a giant spider eating a bird has been discovered in Atherton, west of Cairns.

BREAKING NEWS EXCLUSIVE: The man who took the amazing photos of a spider eating a bird on the Tableland, west of Cairns, has been found. The images caused a media frenzy and sped around the world.

A 75-year-old retired Tableland man, amateur photographer and bird enthusiast, took the pictures that sparked an international media frenzy yesterday in his Tableland back yard, near Cairns, last week.

"It was an awful thing. The spider was just chewing into it's head," he told The Cairns Post.

See photos of the spider eating the bird

"The spider's head was going up and down, and it was gouging into him (the chestnut-breasted manikin) at the top of his beak. It was still wrapping it up.

"And then the spider just left it. It was like it was too big or something," the man said.

Spider experts said yesterday the photographs showed the orb injecting venom into the stunned bird.

But the photographer maintained that what he saw was a dead bird.

The photos were originally sent around via an email and, when picked up by Cairns.com.au, the story travelled all the world via the internet.

Cairns.com.au has received over 500,000 page views for the Spider Eating Bird story and photo gallery and have received comments from as far afield as Texas and New Jersey in America and from the UK.

The story has obviously captured the world's imagination.

 

 

 

oh my...

 

Just to give you an idea of the size of the bird, it's roughly the size of your common house finch & sparrow.

 

I hate spiders....

damn you, and me clicking on it

 

Spiders are awesome creatures but that thing is GIGANTIC!
I'll stick with the smaller jumping spiders.

 

haha now thats an awesome picture!!!

 

dang! that's really creepy!

 

Thats just crazy.

 

Oh.. my..

I don't have a problem with spiders until they're a foot away from me or attempting to crawl on me. I have a bigger issue with their webs lol.

 

lol I used to be scared of spiders but since my girlfriend is dead scared of them and i have to kill every spider she sees, i seem to have got rid of my fear.... still wouldnt wanna have to kill THAT thing (maybe with a blow torch or something)

 

thats a big @$$ spider holy $#@! BATMAN!!!!

 

x2

 

i blow torched a nest of black widows once lol no jokeactually can of raid and a lighter

 

the bird is staring right in to the camera just look at it you can see it plea HAHAHA

saying some body pls close me eyes

 

Looks fake to me.. the bird looks real, but the spider looks fake. Just like those photos of the camel spiders or whatever in the iraq desert. HUGE ___ spiders that looked real and what not but it was a hoax after all.

Whats the odd's of the bird getting caught in a spider web? lol

 

DAMN!

 

damn, that spider was just feasting

 

Those camel spiders are REAL! I have seen them numerous times in my many wonderful tax payer paid trips to lovely Kuwait and Iraq. Talk about being in hell. It wasn't the spiders that scared me, but instead the uncertain foot patrols we did all the time.