"I walk around in your mouth while you sleep!" Credit: Wikipedia
I walk around in your mouth while you sleep!
  • Wikipedia
  • “I walk around in your mouth while you sleep!”

This is a new series. I decided to start it off big. The huntsman spider is the biggest dickhead in the spidanimal kingdom. How DARE he be so gigantic?!? What, exactly, is his DAMAGE? What the fuck kind of a grudge does he have against me getting a good night’s sleep?

I first learned about the huntsman spider a few years ago when my cousin, who lives in Australia for reasons that can only involve hallucinogenic drugs, told me a “cool story” about driving his car on the “motorway” (whatever that is). To shield his eyes from the ruinous Australian sun (world’s #1 cause of leprosy), he reached up and lowered the sun visor. And OH, HELLO! On the back of the sun visor, an enormous huntsman spider was clinging and dozing, dreaming of devouring delicious human eyeballs for its afternoon snack (and it WASN’T EVEN HUNGRY). Then, with certain death* perched just inches from his face, my cousin had to maneuver his car safely to the shoulder, exit the vehicle, and commence to freak the fuck out. Oh. Cool story, cousin.

Then I never spoke to my cousin again. (Consequences, people.)

Now, please “enjoy” this video:

Awesome. Now I am never speaking to my computer again. (Attention, Twitter followers: the huntsman spider will be updating my account from now on.)

Anyway, spider of the day! Enjoy!

*“Waaaaaaaahhhhh!” I can hear you cry, “But Lindy, huntsman spiders are non-lethal and harmless!!!” Oh, ARE THEY? Or are they just really good liars!?

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

52 replies on “Spider of the Day: Huntsman Spider”

  6. The very last thing I needed was to be made aware of the huntsman spider’s existence. Gaaaaaaaaaa!

    What’s next, you sadist, a series on snakes?

  7. P.S. If you are committed to torturing us with this series, could you please round out these reports with a note on how easily they can be crushed?

  10. Choice wiki shit:
    “They are able to travel extremely fast, often using a springing jump while running, and walk on walls and even on ceilings. They also tend to exhibit a “cling” reflex if picked up, making them difficult to shake off and much more likely to bite.”

    “In general, huntsman spiders are not regarded as dangerous, and can be considered beneficial because they feed on insects (cockroaches are a favourite). Many Australians will relocate huntsman spiders to the garden rather than kill them.”

    Australian person thinks: oh, let me put this in the yard so it can join in the next frisbee game.

  11. I HATE HATE HATE spiders. I, too, had a spider/driving incident: While driving my college roommate’s car, I, too, flipped down the visor, a huge spider hung down in front of me, and unlike your cousin, I screamed and drove to car off the road, vaulted off the grass verge, and into a field, breaking *many important things* on the bottom of the car.

    You may also enjoy this very fine educational video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBb…

  15. Why do so few YouTube posters understand the art of editing? I assume there’s a spider in that clip, but I lost interest after watching a fan spin for 30 seconds.

  18. It’s spider season in the PNW again – & they are your friends. Kill a spider, bad luck yours will be. Until of flies you’ve swatted fifty-three.

  19. WORST SLOG SERIES EVER D-: D-: D-:

    Please go back to the dick popes, or the kinds of people there are, or Samantha Jones’s vagina, or your favorite birds, or feces, or anything anything anything else.

  20. Ahahaha. Oh, you Americans.
    Huntsman are kind of creepy at first, but you learn to stop being such a pussy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve killed my fair share, but I’ve also knowingly slept with them on the wall above my head. No harm comes of it. Most of the time I’d relocate them outside – same thing I do with any spider that doesn’t have a nasty bite.

    I heard that they’re attracted to carbon dioxide, so like to come crawl onto sleeping people’s faces . Never had it happen to me – I think it’s probably just a myth, anyway.

    Now, dropbears – there’s an animal to fear.

  21. Doo doo doo doo doo, sure has been a long summer. Time to get out the old winter coats. Doo doo doo, just gonna put this on, no big deal OH FUCK HUNTSMAN SPIDER IN THE COAT POCKET HUNTSMAN SPIDER IN THE COAT POCKET WHYYYYYYYY

  22. Australian arachnophobic here. Huntsman spiders are kind of like the big, friendly giant of the spider world here. Even if you are scared of them, you still kind of let them chill in the room or whatever and just keep an eye on them until you have to deal with it. Even if they crawl on you they probably won’t bite you. I’ve witnessed people (idiots) let them crawl on their arms and stuff (before I ran into a fire screaming). And if they bite it doesn’t do much. When I was around four, my Mum once kept one as a pet and named it “Boris”. I would go to the sink and it would be sitting there waiting. I don’t remember much from my childhood but I remember Boris. Fuck you for that, Mum.

    ps. Cool news on the new blog, Lindy

  24. “I would go to the sink and it would be sitting there waiting” caps one of the most chilling tales of childhood ever. You have my deepest sympathy, sir or madam.

  25. @3: For the love of god, people, BROWN RECLUSES DO NOT LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. They are from the DEEP SOUTH. What you “totally know because your uncle’s friend was totally bitten by one while he slept and never saw it” is laughed at by anyone with even a passing interest in arachnids. That giant brown spider is most likely either a domestic house spider (Tegenaria domestica) or giant house spider (T. duellica), both of which are utterly harmless and actually prey upon the hobo spider (T. agrestis) which is more rare in homes and has a potentially “medically significant” bite. Even five minutes of lazy googling / wiki’ing would establish this. Please, please, please shut up about brown recluses.

  27. @20: Aren’t Dropbears supposed to be a National Secret–that way unsuspecting tourists can get mauled by them and thus steer the Dropbears’ hunger away from the population at large?

    Lindy, I hate spiders larger than a moon-landing dollar coin, and YET, this series is THE BEST THING EVAH! Am I crazy, schizo? Is this like the internet version of bungee jumping in darkness? Who knows? But I do know many of the comments so far are fucking hilarious. More!

  28. Though I know they are completely harmless there would be absolutely zerp chance of me being able to sleep knowing one of these creatures was alive within 100m of me.

  29. @27, No, this isn’t the best series ever, it is profoundly unnecessary, and hopefully will not be continued. I really like Slog, and don’t want to stop reading.

  31. In other words, while I am not terrified of spiders, and will put them outside rather than kill them, I’m not fond of reading about creepy fucks like this.

  32. I have every intention of purchasing a shotgun, now. I can only ASSUME that’s the primary method of killing of these when it’s in the house? Outside you use a fuel-air bomb, right? RIGHT??

  33. Also, to the Huntsman’s credit, they are territorial predator motherfuckers that lay the smackdown on other spiders that are smaller and will bite and probably hurt you. So logically you should probably keep them around. But my heart says, “No. GET OUT OF HERE, SPIDER”.

  34. I lived in Oz and these fellas are known as Friendly Huntsmen. Just about every thing else in Oz will kill you –jellyfish, snakes etc, but the Friendly Huntsman is ok. Bit like the blue-tongue lizard that lives out by the pool….. can be unnervy but you get use to them….

  35. @29: Uh. You are referring to SLOG, right? SLOG: Where they talk about sex with animals, sex with ugly Republicans, sexless Talk show hosts (Glenn Beck), bizarre internet pop-culture mash-ups, and more… Surely, you, like me come to SLOG for the culture, stay for the genitalia jokes?

    Or are you talking about the Seattle Times Blog?

  36. Spiders are awful, but cockroaches, with their dozens of communicable diseases chilling happily on their wings, freak me the fuck out — especially when they fly right at you just after you turn on the light (they always fly right at you when you do that).

    The huntsman spider in that clip looks as large as a tarantula. Wow.

  37. @35, SLOG, where they talk about all that stuff, except creepy fucking spiders that drop down on your face and suffocate you by laying eggs in your throat.

    Genitalia jokes>>>Creepy fucking spiders

  38. @36, it’s much, much larger than a tarantula. Huntsmans (huntsmen?) can get as big as a FOOT ACROSS. In Australia, they’re more usually six to eight inches.

  39. we may not have to worry about brown recluses, but we do have black widows, wolf and hobo spiders (and hobos look very much like the common harmless-but-scary-looking giant house spider).

    but i like spiders, even though when i first moved here and slept on my brothers floor, one of them bit my eyelid and swelled it shut for a day.

    this may be useful for locals: http://share3.esd105.wednet.edu/rsandeli…

  45. We have quite the colony of Giant European House Spiders living in our crawlspace. I don’t bother them, because although their appearance is alarming (they can get quite large – not Huntsman large, of course, but still, alarmingly large), for the most part, they’re not interested in biting humans. They do actively prey on hobo spiders, and hobo spiders have a damned nasty bite, so anything that eats them is jake with me.

    Besides, I’ve never seen a whole spider more than 3 feet from one of our doors. Our cats are obsessed with them, and dismantle them within seconds. They pick them up and throw them until the spider’s legs come off. Then they lose interest. It’s kind of disconcerting to find long, hairy spider legs all over the kitchen floor in the morning, but the cats enjoy this pastime.

  48. Spiders don’t terrify me too much. Now Bull Sharks those freak me out. No-one should have to worry about Bull Sharks in a fresh water river, but they have been found over 2000 miles up stream. It isn’t that they can swim up stream regardless of salinity, they can spend their entire life in a fresh water. Darn things have been found in the Mississippi River near St. Louis, they’ve caught babies 80 miles up the Brisbane River. Hence, feel free to continue with spiders, Lindy. I much prefer them to sharks.

    Yes, I realize that there is little chance that I’ll meet a Bull Shark swimming today is low, but who
    said fears are rational. I should fear the rattle snakes instead.

  50. What a fine fucking example of species-ism. If the poster species of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico were petroleum-drenched spiders rather than pelicans, you’d probably scream for BP to open up more gushers.

    But seriously, flies and mosquitoes are much more harmful than a few arachnids. If you’re going to be all species-ist and hate on little critters, you could garner more sympathy for your cause by disparaging flies and mosquitoes. *Real* journalists rant mostly about flies and mosquitoes, when they rant about bugs and shit.

Comments are closed.