A recovered arachnphobe here who overdid the cure, and I am now obsessed by spiders. I live in the Australian bush - so I had no choice but to address the irrational fear - I’d have gone mad remaining as scared as I was. Huntsmen are regular residents here. Despite above rumours, they won’t go into your mouth - that stuff is all myth. Why would a spider go into a damp space? The females lay eggs in dark spaces, after taking time to spin an egg sac - not in or on moving people!
What to do? Give him a name! He then becomes an individual. A pet. He will disappear again. They can go out through the narrowest gaps. They don’t make webs, but they do have silk. They can use a dropline to descend safely if they want to. Or climb the legs of the desk. Have a good look at the patterning on the abdomen and you will start to see a gorgeous creature. Pity they do appear and disappear unpredictably, but they are totally harmless and really lovely creatures - once you get to know them.
Well, that was my flash, of course. And a cheap camera.
He hasn’t moved since yesterday, still behind my monitor in the same pose. I think he likes the warmth of it.
I am certainly not happy about him being here, but I also don’t want to harm him. So for now I’ll let him stay and roam around a bit. I just wish he kept to walls and corners instead of exactly where I sit every day.
I’m afraid that if I were in your position, GuanoLad, I’d have moved out yesterday and left my house/apartment to Spidey. I’ve got goosebumps just reading about them on wikipedia, seeing your photo, and reading the comments here.
My husband & I have always wanted to visit Australia. But I couldn’t handle the arachnids. Yipes!
I don’t want to be seen to discourage people from visiting Australia. I’ve been living here nearly 12 years and this is the first time a spider has been particularly problematic. I barely see any, usually, even out in nature reserves and the countryside, along with the other deadly beasties (sharks, snakes, etc).
As far as I can see, it’s safer here than in north American bear country or in central American jungley deserty locales.
I doubt it would be big enough for a huntsman in any case- them’s big! They’d probably snatch it off you.
I visited Australia a few years back; my introduction to hunstmen was a woman I was staying with screaming, running out the door, then from the corridor pointing at it, and telling me ‘It’s only a hunstman, they’re not dangerous, honest… but… umm… could you catch it and take it outside?’ Did manage to chase it into a box and get it out into the garden too.
One also took up residence on a festival campsite I was at, behind the toilet paper roll, so when you pulled a bit of paper out this feck-off great spider suddenly appeared inches from your fingers. I don’t startle easily, but I heard some great screams form there over the festival…
At least it meant you were in a convenient location to have a nasty surprise though, if you know what I mean…
It would be hard to test the spider-catcher on a spider and harm an insect-- unless the insect was near its mouth or sumpin, and the spider accidentally bit it.
I love spiders. That Huntsman spider is so cool! *Another reason on my list of Reasons to Visit Australia.
Get yourself a large plastic bowl and a piece of cardboard, shoo it if need be to a place you can put the bowl over it, slide the cardboard under it slowly and take it outside.
Spiders are not insects (I’m looking at you Rachel).
Spiders consume creatures that are for more noxious than themselves.
I, for one, welcome our new spider overlords, hi Lynne-42
So I woke this morning to see Mr Huntsman has disappeared from his spot on my monitor at last, but I know not where he has gone to. I have checked everywhere I interact with, so that’s relieved me enough to know he won’t leap out at me when I go to switch on the oven or whatever.
But where has he gone? Behind the picture frame? In the folds of the curtains? Under the sofa? Or perhaps he went back to his previous home, through some crack in the wall somewhere.
Okay, so I thought I was over my arachnophobia because I can now tolerate the small spiders that sometimes hang out in the corner of the living room, just chillin’. Hell, I’m even okay with tarantulas–they’re fat and fuzzy!
But then I saw those pics you posted and got that horrible itchy “SWEET CHRIST I CAN FEEL ITS LEGS ON THE BACK OF MY NECK” feeling.
I’m with AClockworkMelon: FUCK AUSTRALIA. Well, fuck its spiders, anyway.
I try to console myself with the fact that huntsmen cannot open their fangs wide enough* to bite people - however that did not give me enough courage to sleep in my bed last nigh after I found one scuttling around on my headboard. I slept in the lounge room in my recliner instead
*Their fangs are more like pincers () that move sideways the dangerous spiders have the fangs like snakes || that can go into anything. Wolf spider cause me cause me the heebie screemies - big, hairy, aggressive, pointy downie fangs & flesh eating bacteria …
Oh Jesus. I can take *anything * but a goddamn spider - rats, scorpions, bees, angry dogs, helicopter parents, whatever.
I thought I’d be able to enjoy a few months reprieve from the horror of wolf spiders in CT, thanks to the Winter from Hell. Apparently not! Maybe they don’t like 3 feet of snow either. I walked into the bathroom yesterday and there he is, on the bathmat, in all of his hideous eight-legged glory. I am so proud that my first reaction wasn’t to run screaming into the street, but yell out (in an otherwise empty house), “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ALIVE?!?!” and smash the shit out of him with a kleenex box. I had to retire to my fainting couch shortly thereafter for a brief recovery.
I guess I need to move to some sterile biosphere where I never, ever have to encounter them. So, yeah, never visiting Australia.
Absolutely - much safer here. It’s all about what you are used to. We don’t have gun-toting students in our schools. Our politics is so dull no-one gets violent about it. We don’t have bears, and other deadly critters. In fact, the animal which causes the most deaths in Australia is the honey bee - the same one there is everywhere. Because people can be alllergic. Australia is a really safe place to come.
