Stuff of Nightmares, Giant Huntsman Spider eats possum

Now this is why I'd rather stay in the frigid north of Canada with bigots... erhm I mean bigfoots, jackalopes and whatever other thing that's up here. The toilet isn't the only thing that flushes backwards down there.



magine walking back into your hotel room to that...

Burn the whole house down!

STUFF OF NIGHTMARES

Looks fake to me.

Could be wrong of course. If it’s real then yeah, a mini gun and flamethrower at the sameness time until no ammunition left.

a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

It's just a huntsman spider though.
I see tons of them where I camp all the time. Many as big as my open hand.

Had them crawl on me many times. Their harmless.


Never seen one that big but it's hard to tell how big this one really is. That could be a very small baby possum.
Or it could be photoshopped.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

Amazing creatures!

Chill, folks; it's a pygmy possum.

Pygmy possums’ bodies generally grow up to 2.5 inches - roughly the same size as a Huntsman's body.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

Their harmless.

Depends on which type of huntsman it is

If its a badge huntsman then you could get a bit nauseous and sick if bitten.

Most huntsman are as you say harmless, as in just a bit mark and maybe some itchiness but if its a badge huntsman you could feel a bit of pain and sickness

australianmuseum.net.au...


and this site shows exactly what they look like including its underside with the "badge" showing why its called the badge huntsman

www.arachne.org.au...

a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

Not into the business but that thing it hanging on is a Dorma TS73 V doorcloser...



According to the specs that thing is about 50mm or 5cm (or 1.98 inches) tall.

I would still not like to find it above my hotelroom but I wouldn't kill it with fire.

Peace

It's just a face hugger in its younger stage. The long snake tail that constricts around the neck comes next as it fully evolves.

a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

In Australia, these are the least of your problems.

a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

The huntsman is quite the interesting spider, they grow pretty large. My brother has been down there and seen quite a few. Pretty harmless but oh hell, you don't want to meet a bunch in a dark room with a flashlight lol. Spiders tend to bring out the fear in a lot of people and sometimes rightly so. We still get the banana spiders (deadly) and black widows in shipments from Mexico through South America.

However, you want to go to South Africa and play with the baboon spiders lol. My wife got bit by a small (maybe 5" tip to tip) grey wall/baboon spider at the Doena motel in komatipoort, it just left a big welt on her leg. Our house in germiston however had the black hairy large baboon spiders (dinner plate sized) in the roof/attic space. We used to hear the tapping of feet in the roof of mice chasing spiders, we thought. Found out was the other way around one day when a big hairy leg fell between the wall and the roof planks I had put up in my little bar. Then I found one of its compatriots in my pool that was around the size of a dinner plate. Luckily the bite is no worse than a bee sting for people.

There are also the red Roman spiders, huge body with tiny legs. They come out a night and follow you in your shadow and then bite around your feet and ankles. You can put them in your hand if you shine a light on them (or moonlight). Then there are also the bird spiders, they are quite large (dinner plate sized) and string their webs between trees up to 30 feet apart. The webs are generally 7-10 feet above ground. They catch and eat birds, hence the name :-) Then, you have your black widows/button spiders, I got bit by one of those in my garage whilst cleaning it out. Was sick as dog and I went septic, was not pleasant at all. Ended up having 4 surgeries to remove necrotic tissue and built up keloids over a period of almost 30 years.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

okay... I put stuff of nightmares in the title, but you brought the content! Star for you.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

Then there are also the bird spiders, they are quite large (dinner plate sized) and string their webs between trees up to 30 feet apart. The webs are generally 7-10 feet above ground. They catch and eat birds, hence the name :-)

Do you mean the bird eating spider?


The bird eating spider is a type of tarantula. we have them here in Australia and can be bought as pets.

It creates a burrow with its web and lives on the ground usually like under a rock or in a log.


Even the South American variation, the Goliath Bird eating spider also lives in a burrow.

Not sure what bird eating spider creates a web 7-10 feet above the ground though.


Bird eating spiders rarely actually eat birds, mostly stuff found on the ground such as insects, lizards other spiders and even snakes its said.

originally posted by: InhaleExhale
a reply to: bobs_uruncle

Then there are also the bird spiders, they are quite large (dinner plate sized) and string their webs between trees up to 30 feet apart. The webs are generally 7-10 feet above ground. They catch and eat birds, hence the name :-)

Do you mean the bird eating spider?


The bird eating spider is a type of tarantula. we have them here in Australia and can be bought as pets.

It creates a burrow with its web and lives on the ground usually like under a rock or in a log.


Even the South American variation, the Goliath Bird eating spider also lives in a burrow.

Not sure what bird eating spider creates a web 7-10 feet above the ground though.


Bird eating spiders rarely actually eat birds, mostly stuff found on the ground such as insects, lizards other spiders and even snakes its said.

I used to go on safari, usually twice a month between military bases and border visits. Between tshukudu and russermi north of mica and the hoedspruit AF base and west of Kruger park, there are some large sparsely populated fields sprinkled with trees. We'd run in jeeps through there, wish I had some pics but I concentrated on larger animals when I was between bases. We were always driving under the webs and they were huge, 30 feet across, a couple of feet high and 7-10 feet off the ground.

When I would take my wife with me, because I knew I was going to stay on a game farm, she would freak out every time we drove under those webs, ducking her head and cringing lol. Btw, they do eat birds! Their funnels were generally on the ground and they had trigger lines to the web which were pretty easy to see if you wanted to find the spider. They are like tarantula, but with much longer legs. Like I said, I took pics of larger game, I got out of the jeep to take a pic of these two beauties about 2 miles from the field of bird spiders.
A pair if lioness'

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

Btw, they do eat birds!

Yes, Bird eating spiders rarely do but are actually more often prey to birds. That is probably how they do eat birds, Baboon spiders are known to get very defensive so if attacked by a bird could defend itself and instead of being eaten, it eats its predator.

I was just saying that their main food supply is not actually birds but more so insects and other arachnids and even reptiles.

They are like tarantula, but with much longer legs.

Bird eating spiders are a species of tarantula.

IN Africa you have the King Baboon, In South America its the Goliath, these are tarantula that are bird eating spiders but they don't create webs above the ground but burrows either under ground or in or under a log or under a rock and the web they create covers the burrow, that is how they catch their prey.

We were always driving under the webs and they were huge, 30 feet across, a couple of feet high and 7-10 feet off the ground.

Species discovered in Madagascar and also in Africa that do create massive webs across trees are the Darwin's Bark spider, However they are not Tarantulas / bird eating spiders but Orb weaving spiders and can create webs up to 3 times size you saw, over 80 feet.

They eat small prey, the largest thing they eat is a dragonfly as the spiders are quite small but can create massive webs because the silk they create is 10x tougher than Kevlar.

a reply to: InhaleExhale

Just talked to my wife about the bird spiders again, she remembers lol. Scared the crap out of her and our daughter. She remembers as well, they were bigger than dinner plates with their legs stretched out. The webs were around 30 feet across and when we passed under them in the jeep, her and our daughter dropped to the floor because they were afraid of hitting the web and getting a spider that looked as big as a face-hugger on them. I just sat there and laughed because the webs were over a foot above the roll bars on the jeep. As I said you could see the trigger lines down to the funnels, which had a single hole about the size of a toilet paper roll. Unlike American tarantula, these things were pretty fast, from memory I would say 20-24" per second. Took about 12-14 seconds for one to make it from its funnel to a small bird in the middle of the web.

A Darwin bark spider does make huge webs, but the spider itself is only 3-4" across with legs extended. These things were monsters, 12-15" tip to tip with legs extended and a body about 4" long. A type of tarantula, yep, hairy and nasty, something like the ones in my roof and those were eating mice lol.

I have a pic of one somewhere, I will have to look for it. Shot with a minolta x7a and 400asa, probably an 80mm lens.i seem to remember I didn't include it in my good set of photos since I was shooting on about a 30 degree angle with a background of bright sky. That made the spider look thinner and you couldn't tell size as there were no landmarks or objects behind it.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

EWWWW!!!!!! Why did I look? Why? Why????? Gack! I hate spiders. Saw a HUGE one myself once, big as an alien face sucker, in Florida. Not nice things.

a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

Its a big spider, but not that big, look at the second picture and the door hinge right on the bottom and compare sizes. Its basically about the same size as a door hinge, or about a human palm. I think camel spiders are bigger, but forgot how big they get as well.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

It's just a huntsman spider though.
I see tons of them where I camp all the time. Many as big as my open hand.

Had them crawl on me many times. Their harmless.


Never seen one that big but it's hard to tell how big this one really is. That could be a very small baby possum.
Or it could be photoshopped.

I say it is totally real. That looks like a small mouse it's holding, not even a pygmy possum.

They certainly are not harmless. I have been bitten by them several times. The bite is incredibly painful, like being prodded with a red hot poker, and also infernally itchy. Both the pain and the itching continue tormenting for many weeks. Their fangs are huge curved prongs that leave significant puncture marks. Revolting creatures.