A gigantic spider the size of a hand was found by an Australian woman in her living room.
Laree Clarke spotted the spider on her ceiling and snapped photographs of it.
She shared pictures on social media, writing, “Is there anyone that could remove this from my house?? I don’t have a container that big!”
“When I went near it with the phone light it [came] at me raising it fangs and legs,” she added.
Commenters posted replies on the picture, which was posted to the local Bluewater News Facebook group, including: “it’s her house now.”
Another agreed, writing that Clarke and other residents should “move out or something.”
“Probably easier to burn your house down at this point,” added another.
“What do you think it’s going to do to you if it stays there Laree?” added another.
In reply to one person who asked how big it was, Clarke said: “About the size of your hand.”
Clarke later told people that the spider was “safely removed” from her home.
For our latest #WPYinsights film, @RobertIrwin shares the story behind his powerful picture ‘The catch’, which captures a huntsman spider in mid-air, clutching its meal.
There’s still time to see it in #WPY54 @NHM_London, but hurry! It closes this Sunday: https://t.co/rmUL3NMqE5 pic.twitter.com/XzftQFbfRP
— Wildlife Photographer of the Year (@NHM_WPY) June 24, 2019
twitter meet cheddar, my female huntsman spider pic.twitter.com/dWgUNHuwHh
— union man (@libbyfanaccount) July 23, 2019
Huntsman Spiders
According to the Queensland Museum, Huntsman spiders are “perhaps our largest and most fearful of spiders.”
Coupled with their large size, their ability to run across walls makes them quickly recognizable. The first two pairs of legs are usually the longest pairs and the legs tend to go sideways from the body,” the museum states on its website.
“Most Huntsmen are harmless but evidently are responsible for vehicle roll-overs because they get inside the windscreen and move across it while a panicked driver reacts. In houses, Huntsmen often place their egg sac in the well of bathtubs; the adults recover in dry periods by rest on the backs of drying towels both on the clothes line and in the bathroom. Huntsmen molt by hanging by a thread and dropping out of their old skin which is left hanging around.”
???? A man staying at a ski lodge in Australia had the scare of his life when he witnessed a massive huntsman spider devour a tiny possum: https://t.co/wHBdp0hDOK pic.twitter.com/714LoPHGKW
— Travel Noire (@TravelNoire) June 28, 2019
The Australian Museum said that Huntsman spiders are typically grey to brown, sometimes having banded legs.
“Many huntsman spiders, especially Delena (the flattest), and including Isopeda, Isopedella and Holconia, have rather flattened bodies adapted for living in narrow spaces under loose bark or rock crevices. This is aided by their legs which, instead of bending vertically in relation to the body, have the joints twisted so that they spread out forwards and laterally in crab-like fashion (‘giant crab spiders’),” it states on its website.
“Both Brown (Heteropoda) and Badge (Neosparassus) Huntsman spiders have less flattened bodies. Brown Huntsman (Heteropoda species) spiders are patterned in motley brown, white and black.”
Outside of homes, the spiders are usually found living under loose bark on trees, in crevices on rock walls and in logs, under rocks and slabs of bark on the ground, and on foliage. Besides intruding into houses, the spiders are infamous for getting into cars and trucks.
