Inspired by stoid’s spider thread in the Pit, I did a little googling in an effort to find the biggest, nastiest bug out there. I might have found it:
If you are frightened by the size of the Australian Huntsman Spider, I’m sure you won’t be happy to know that they are by no means the largest land-living arthropods out there. Check out the Coconut Crab - an absolute abomination of a crustacean. Living on islands in much of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, it can weigh up to 9 pounds(!) and feeds (among other things) on coconuts that it breaks open with its claws.
It might not be as dangerous as some of the arachnids, but I still wouldn’t want a close encounter with one.
So. - Anyone got anything bigger that still qualifies as a bug?
The drawing of the spider wasn’t so bad, but if those photos of the coconut crab are for real, there aren’t enough :eek:s in the world to express my horror.
Bat-eating centipedes of Venezuela. I don’t think it qualifies on the BIG front (though 13 inches is more centipede than I ever want to deal with, thank you very much.), but on the Nastiest side, I think this fills the bill nicely.
According to Wikipedia, the coconut crab may be at the size limit for terrestrial arthropods. If so, it’s unlikely anyone will top this 16 pound, three-foot-wide crab with coconut-cracking strength that likes to climb trees.
They’d be much creepier if they fed by jumping out of trees, which I’m sure wouldn’t happen unless they mistook your unsuspecting head for a coconut. Cool colors, though.
You just found yourself a horror movie plot. The next evolution in coconut crab behavious - falling out of trees onto unsuspecting people’s heads and going for the jugular. The only possible retaliation would be to nuke them from orbit…
Holy shit, ohmygod, that coconut crab. There is no freaking way I’m clicking on the ink for centipedes.
Oh, why did I open this thread???
Given our motto of fighting ignorance and all, I should point out that the critters in your OP qualify as a bug. Technically, bugs are a specific order of insect (Hemiptera), but even in common usage, bug refers to insects, not any old arthropod.
If crabs do count, by the way, there are water-dwelling crabs (e.g., some king crabs) that are much larger than the coconut crab.
The absolute largest, on the other hand, is that unholy terror of the deep known as the spider crab. I saw a couple of those suckers in an aquarium- horror movie material if I ever saw one.
Which leads to Crabzilla. Yes, it’s all in my script for Ten-Legged Freaks (an improvement on its predecessor because it has the hypen in the title). Michael Chabon’s going to do the novelization.
I don’t like bugs at all but I usually find these threads to be cool for some reason. While some of the critters make me want to permanently avoid whatever hemisphere they are located in, that Japanese giant hornet is badass. Apparently is nickname is “yak killer.” I’ll let that sink in for a minute.
I stuck my toe in that pond and had to bail before it attacked anything.
Fair enough. I just figured that “BIG bugs” would attract more views than “Awful arthropods” 
And I know about the larger crabs and lobsters, but they aren’t as frightening to me as a 9 lb bone-crushing, exoskeleton-wearing, land-living critter. They could be in your house right now, you know.
Thirteen feet across? Thirteen feet across? :eek:
Ah–Alliteration! Colossal Crustaceans? Extreme Exoskeletons? Immense Insects? Stupendous Spiders? Brobdingnagian Beetles? 
You mean I used to have a loverly bunch of coconuts? But not any more, because the colossal coconut-crunching crab devoured them?
Take it from me: Good move. The goddamn thing ate a BAT. They say it’s a foot long, but it looked three times that size.
Giant crabs don’t bother me - I’d eat them long before they ate me - but I couldn’t make it through that centipede video. Why did I open this thread during my lunch break?
Um. Yeah - that’s exactly what I meant. No more coconutty deliciousness for you.
Dad-a-chum? Did-a-chick? :eek:
Damn me for staying up late last night, reading “The Drawing of the Three”.
Lobstrosities…
D’oh! That’s gonna leave a mark. A puke-shaped mark. I hope you weren’t eating in your cube.
Would a crab that lived on coconuts taste coconutt-y? If so, it sounds like it’s halfway to a Thai curry.
ETA: Does “bug” automatically mean “insect”? I always sort of used the word “bugs” to include insects AND spiders and their ilk.
There’s always the Belostomatidae, aka Toe-Biter:
Here’s a picture of one carrying its eggs.
Cheers!