Australia. Also triantulope. Popular corruption of TARANTULA, applied to a large spider of the genus Voconia.
1846. C. P. Hodgson. Remin. Australia, 173. The tarantulas, or ‘triantelopes’ as the men call them, are large, ugly spiders.
1909. Daily Chron., 13 April, 4/7. What is a ‘triantelope’?… Originally it was the children’s … way of saying tarantula, but people generally came to adopt it.
