Gant spiders were large poisonous spiders that lived on the world Batuu. Around 379 BBY, Jedi Padawan Rooper Nitani learned that a salmaca that was raiding Peka village was also protecting the village by preying on a nearby colony of gant spiders.
Gant spiders lived in certain regions of the world Batuu.
By around 379 BBY, a colony of gant spiders had established itself near Peka village. Around that year, the colony attracted a salmaca, which settled in a cave nearby and used the gant spiders as its main food source. The salmaca also began raiding Peka at night for valuables and junk to line its nest.
When Padawan Rooper Nitani entered the salmaca's cave, both to help the people of Peka and as part of her Jedi Trials, she saw the corpses of several gant spiders stored in a makeshift larder. She realized that if the gant spiders had been left to breed, they would have posed a threat to the village, and that by preying on the spiders, the salmaca was actually protecting the villagers. When she explained this to the villagers, they agreed to leave out junk at night for the salmaca to take so that it would no longer have to raid their homes. After, Nitani told her Master, Silandra Sho, about the gant spiders and her agreement with the villagers.
The corpses of gant spiders appeared in the short story "Shield of the Jedi," written by George Mann and published in the 2023 young-adult anthology The High Republic: Tales of Light and Life as a part of the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project.