Giant huntsman spider: The world's largest spider by leg span

https://www.livescience.com ^ | August 12, 2021 | By Jessie Szalay

[Red Badger]

Giant huntsman spiders are one of the world's biggest spiders.

An Australian huntsman spider. Image credit: Shutterstock

Huntsman spiders are large, fast spiders that live in warm climates throughout the world. They are named for the way that they catch their prey.

Unlike many spider species, huntsman spiders "don't build webs to catch prey," said Christy Bills, an entomologist and the invertebrate collections manager at the Natural History Museum of Utah. Instead, these spiders hunt down their prey.

There are thousands of subspecies in this family (Sparassidae). The average huntsman spider species is about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) long with a leg span of up to 5 inches (12.7 cm). The giant huntsman spider (Heteropoda maxima), however, has a leg span of up to 12 inches (30 cm), making it the largest spider by diameter; it is often described as being "the size of a dinner plate." (The largest spider by weight is probably the goliath birdeater tarantula (Theraphosa blondi), according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.)

Peter Jäger, head of the arachnology department at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, discovered the giant huntsman in a cave in Laos in 2001, according to his research published in the journal Zoosystema. Only a few people in the world have seen this behemoth arachnid.

[octex]

Lots of big tarantulas in Texas, too, so be careful when selecting what State to move to.

[Candor7]

Why that looks like her name is Joesephine!

[bert]

Locally our Huntsman is the wolf spider. I let them live because they capture all sorts of other stuff and do me no harm. The coloration is more brownish around here. Size approximates 2 inches or so