(26 Oct 2013) The world's biggest spider and largest butterfly have gone on display in the Costa Rican capital San Jose.
The giant spider is called Goliath Birdeater Tarantula and it's native to the region of Mato Grosso in Brazil.
The spider is among more than 4,000 preserved insects on exhibit at the University of Costa Rica.
Visitors filled the university on Thursday to look at spiders, scorpions, centipedes, beetles, butterflies and other insects from five continents.
American biologist Richard Whitten donated his insect collection to the university, which will be its permanent home.
It took him and his wife Margaret more than 50 years to amass it.
"We've always wondered where all the collection would end up, where it will be preserved. In the tropics like this, insects get ruined very quickly because of high humidity and insect pests in the boxes. So, we needed a place that was responsible and the University of Costa Rica is the place they ended up in," Whitten said.
"We are very, very happy. The exhibit here is beautiful," he added.
Whitten said another reason he chose to donate the collection to the university is they agreed to allow the public to see it.
The university plans to make it a travelling exhibit to different parts of the country, and it's also considering the possibility of taking it to other Central American countries.
"It is an extremely important collection because it represents a tangible and invaluable heritage of arthropods from around the globe from the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago to the North Pole," said Ricardo Murillo, a biology professor at the university.
The public exhibit opened on Thursday and ends on 26 November.
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