hevs

OH. MY. GOD.
I know the huntsman is not poisonous, but if that happened to me i would die of a heart attack!:scared:

Badge

On a visit to friends on the NSW mid coast we rented a log cabin on an island on a river.

as "token" POM my assigned job was spider clearing. within minutes of ourarrival in the dark thre was a scream when my mates two teenaged daughters came in having found a huge huntsman on the inside door of the outdoor dunny!!

I was sent out with a stick to deal with it. Have to admit I was crappin' myself...

badgers

walaj

at least you were in the right room

I was actually disappointed not to see a huntsman that was at my friends house earlier in the day that we arrived. And there is part of me that would not have been too bothered if I had seen their resident carpet snake, rather than the skin it had left behind.
I do not like such creatures, but I have become more tolerant of them, as I find out more about them and dispell some of the unknown fears I have had

whisky

I think that I will cope with the spiders, but even the word SSSSSnake brings shivers up my spine. I think I would have a fit or a hypo if one was too close to me.

Whisky

denhim

just how do these huntsman spiders get into your car if there so big?

Pollyana

I'm told - though I haven't seen it done - that they can flatten themselves and slide through the crack under the door? Certainly their body is not that big & chunky, so they could probably get through very small gaps. And they move at quite a speed so the door wouldn't need to be open for long before they got in!:scared:

PeteY

Huntsman are quite flat... I guess its like a mouse, in that you would be amazed at how small a hole they can squeeze through.

Thought this thread could do with some "graphical enhancement"

Trust me.....this is quite a small one....

Pollyana

Nice pic! The one which ran striaght across the floor at me was about twice the size! (or was that my overactive imagination!)

Thinking back, the very first one I saw was in a backpackers hostel, in Tassie, I was in the bottom bunk and it was crawling along the base of the bunk above me - about 3 feet above my head................. and I managed not to scream!

Badge

that is a TINY one!!

(said the actress to the bishop)

I've seen ones (in WA most memorably) where the body is a size of your fist, and the legs the width of a dinner plate - maybe bigger

ACE

Badgersmount please tell me that you did not see these huge spiders inside, please tell me you were in the deepest darkest bush in the middle of nowhere, even if it's lie:scared:
ACE

Pollyana

Of course its a lie...you don't REALLY get spiders the size of dinner plates walking across the floor towards you...... however I'm a bad liar, and he was a VERY big spider! Even Carl, born and bred in the wilds of Queensland said it was a BIG one (when he'd finished laughing at me). On a serious note, you get used to them, they are big, but they are harmless, and they get rid of lots of the other creepy crawlies.

I'm far more worried about meeting the little poisonous ones. Thats why I'm marrying an Aussie who knows which ones are nasty and can hit them for me!

ACE

Phew!

Pollyana

I was told that the spiders in Arachnophobia were Australian Huntsmen......?

Ceri

a pic from Brissie of a live one
I've posted this pic in the past on a similar thread somewhere
Huntsmen are quite common around here - more so in the summer months.
I normally leave them alone as they are good for keeping down the pests, I've also have had them inside the house.. they don't bother me, I quite like spiders
. They are not totally harmless like a lot of people seem to think, they just won't kill or make you seriously ill that's all. It totally depends on the person, some people when bitten can suffer minor side effects such as nausea, headaches and such for a couple of hours after the bite, other people suffer no ill effects at all. The bite itself is supposed to be painful (they do have quite large fangs) - I couldn't personally tell you how painful it is as I've never been bitten by one, and I certainly don't intentionally intend to get bitten by one just to find out how painful the bite actually is

cheers

Ceri

pic of one close up - friend was too scared to get out of the car - lol

They are really quite timid - put your hand near one and they will run away from you in the opposite direction - they are not aggressive at all - so please don't kill them, although I've had one jumping on my shoulder when I've taken a broom to it - it fell on to my shoulder .

Cheers