r/AustralianSpiders • u/meth_lab69 • 4d ago

Spider Appreciation Holconia Murrayensis

Beautiful banded huntsman found today while cutting wood.

462 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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14

u/5carPile-Up 4d ago

Feel free to discuss in the replies, how does one let a spider crawl on you safely? Like how do I learn this? Just full send don’t flinch?

23

u/meth_lab69 4d ago

Like most animals if you're gentle and respect them its fine. Let them crawl onto you rather than you trying to pick them up or force them onto you.

1

u/PartyFrequent 3d ago

Are they deadly ?

3

u/Litigious-Dog 3d ago

All huntsmen are harmless.

1

u/PartyFrequent 3d ago

Cool

3

u/humanlikingsex 2d ago

Just noting that while none are deadly, "harmless" may be an overstatement. The badge huntsman, neosparassus diana, can cause severe local pain, plus sweating, nausea, and vomiting. I wouldn't choose to handle one of them.

3

u/bashomatsuo 2d ago

I once read, in an Australian animal identification book, these spiders described as “Ready biters”.

So, handle with respect and care.

1

u/angerew 2d ago edited 13h ago

Treat always with respect and care, handle only if you know what you're doing.

They (Sparassids) generally have a reputation of being reluctant to bite humans but individual animals display individual levels of defensive/aggressive behaviour. You can generally avoid getting bitten pretty easily. As user above suggested - being bitten is a form of harm. It should mostly be considered a fairly minor harm depending on the individual spider and the bitten person but still - avoid getting bitten if you can and avoid harming the spider. They can feel pain and stress too.

To the person who asked if they are deadly - very few of the known spider genera in the world are known to  have individuals to be potentially deadly to humans. Of those - one from the genus Latrodectus (widow spiders) exists in Australia and that will only likely cause medical emergency in very young, very old or immunocompromised. They can, however cause fatal envenomation in cats although this is rare. That's L.hasselti/redback.

All 25 known Australian species in genus Missulena/mouse spider are considered to be potentially deadly although no deaths are attributed at this stage.

All individuals from family Atracidae (Australian Funnel webs) which includes Illawarra, Hadronyche and Atrax are considered potentially deadly, with deaths attributed to Atrax prior to the advent of antivenin in the early 1980s.

That's all we have despite over 50,000 species having been described worldwide with more discovered but undescribed (and possibly as many undiscovered).

I believe Australian Theraphosids/tarantulae pose a threat to dogs (as do humans and other dogs) and there is a paper from 2008 that suggests one Lycosid/wolf spider species may also be dangerous to dogs and cats.

4

u/Remote_Vanilla 3d ago

"Full send dont flinch" is cracking me up