Huntsman Spider in Australia

When i was traveling in Australia, occasionally i had the pleasure to meet this "little" fellow here. You may know him from the movie Arachnophobia

The locals always told me their are totally harmless and i should not be scared.

i tried my best, never killed one on purpose and tried just to ignore them.

But one day i found a dead one and had a closer look!

I still hear the locals saying: "aww those little buggers are bloody harmless mate"

But please look at these claws! That looks so intimidating! And for sure it would hurt to get bitten by one of those "buggers" And they are very fast!

Okay, spiders are scary... But at the same time, very interesting creatures! And frankly even it looks so scary, it is unlikely it will ever bite you and if, it would be probably very mild symptoms.

This Australian Huntsmen Spider is also called "Delena cancerides". You find them all over Australia and in New Zealand.
picture source: wikipedia.org

Something that might surprise you is the fact that this species is actually considered to be social and even share prey among each other. find out more here

i found this cool website where you can find out more about Delena cancerides distribution
eol.org

What is you experience with spiders? Are you scared or fascinated?
For me it is a mix of both.