If you aren't driving or doing anything important, I want you to do something for me.

I want you to look at the back of your hand and stretch out all of your fingers as much as possible.

Better, actually, you could press your hand down on a flat surface, like a table, and just really try to spread your fingers.

Look at your hand for a moment and let it become

just an object in your visual field. Try to let go of your identification with it and pay attention

to the space this hand of yours takes up. Now imagine an obscenely large tarantula on top of your hand that covers it completely.

Really try to visualize this.

Imagine a spider with a body that is the size of the main part of your hand,

and the spider's legs are so long that your fingers, though grass-isle compared to most items,

look like short stubs by comparison.

Imagine the tarantula is a burnt brown color and shaggy with hairs all over them.

This animal is so large and muscular and hairy, they almost

look like an alien mammal. The Erechnids answer to mammoths. Their wingspan, if you could call it that,

perhaps their leg span would be better, is 12 inches, a foot long.

This isn't some fictional creature, though they look like something parents would invent to scare their children into behaving.

This isn't some ancient, extinct organism that vanished before humans arrived on Earth, though they look like

one of prehistories monsters. This animal is real, and they live on our planet right now.

They are the largest spider in the world, the Goliath bird eater. Throfsa Blondie. I'm Mackin. This is species.

Welcome to the show. If you missed it, there was a bonus episode released in the middle of last week

on the emergence of fire usage in humans

and its implications. It's a rather big bonus episode, and I think you'll enjoy it. And if you want

more bonus content, you can become a donor to the show. I want to spend more time doing this

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