subs. (Australian).—A comic variation of Tarantula. [Applied in Australia to a perfectly harmless spider (though popularly supposed to be poisonous), with mandibles, but which will attack nobody unless itself attacked.]
1846. C. P. HODGSON, Reminiscences of Australia, 173. The tarantulas, or ‘TRIANTOLOPES,’ as the men call them, are large, ugly spiders, very venomous.
1860. ANONYMOUS, My Experiences in Australia, 151. There is no lack of spiders either, of all sorts and sizes, up to the large tarantula, or TRI-ANTELOPE, as the common people persist in calling it.
