My boyfriend found one like that in his apt in Florida! He took a couple of pics, the spider was larger than his hand, wonder how it got here?
According to Wiki the Huntsman and its variations are found all through the Southern Hemisphere and in tropical areas like Florida, so it's quite possible he did have one.
I think its the result of bieng bitten by a relative of a nephla (in India) when I was I think 4.. then too on my face. The effect of dissolving skin arounf my nose too about 2 months to recover. I have since then been severly... i mean severly Arachnophobic. Thats one of the reasons I will never ever probably visit Australia
Can handle wild snakes and scorpions... wont even mind a tiger or 2 but not a spider
Nim
Alright, I think I can forgive you for that one!
I concur on this one.We regularly get Huntsman spiders and whilst they look hairy and scary, they are really incredibly timid. They usually like nothing more than sitting in a corner and catching flies! They do sort of put a little damper on dinner parties though, when a saucer size one sidles up behind someone on the wall whilst their back is to it...lol. Daddy Long Legs? Apparently they actually have extremely deadly venom, but they can't attack humans because they cannot get their fangs to penetrate our skin. How fortunate!
Yeah we get Daddy-Long-Legs spiders here a lot too. They seem to like our downstairs toilet especially!
Thanks for backing me up about these spiders mate! I know what you mean about them surprising people though!
I's say roughly if you spread out all the fingers on your hand, thats roughly about how big they are with their legs out.
That is so startling! O_O I'm not afraid of spiders, but that... the fact that you aren't freaked out is pretty surprising.
Yeah it takes quite a bit to faze me....
. A lot of my friends are spider-haters. For some of those close ups I was literally two inches away from it - I kept getting the shakes so i rested the camera on the edge of the tank to get a good shot!
It seems like I'm the only one here who thinks that they are cute! The way he scurries away under the piping just killed me XD. I wish we had things like this in canada, but it's far too cold for large spiders. I wonder if they would make good pets?
When I was little I kept one for awhile in an insect-keeper thing, but I think it died because I wasn't feeding it properly (little kid not knowing better) but I'm sure there are people who do.
Just had to ask do they bite?
Wonder what you call the spiders they are big enough and obviously could be a free pet. Do they eat flies? Ship a live one to me ???
They can (see the link I put in my second or third post on the first page) but you'd have to really provoke them - they'd rather run away. According to that link apparently its a painful bite but they're not poisonous. They are called 'Huntsman Spiders'. They have a wikipedia page,
. THey eat all kinds of insects I think, I image flies are included. They don't build webs thought, not sure how they catch things. Pouncing I assume, they are very fast movers. Something tells me the folks at quarantine might have an issue with that in the mail!
LOL Australia has soo many creatures that are deadly, we're all preety used to it though, theres only a few that really worry you like eatsren brown snakes or funnel webs.
Huntsmans seem to have an endless fascination with fish tanks, I think it's the vibrations of the pumps, I keep finding them on top of my HOB's, though they never go near the water (my tanks are open top)
tetraqueen I've never heard of a huntsman biting, they've got pretty fearsome mandibles, but I don't believe they can get through the skin. Besides their non venomous so it's nothing to worry about.
I think the daddy long legs thing is a myth, I remember something about that being show on mythbusters...
Was wondering when you were going to show up with your own Huntsman story!
Yes, compared to what else we have Huntsman spiders are the last thing we have to worry about! Yeah I've never heard of anyone being bitten by one but a bit of googling and that previous link of mine tells me they can bite.
I can't get over all the extreme reactions in this thread though!
