THE HUNTSMAN SPIDER

For my first radio segment on 3RRR I decided to talk about Huntsman spiders. Noble as this plan was, it forgot that the only public speaking I've ever done has centred around me crying in a supermarket. So instead of an easy back and forth about a pretty great animal, 3RRR’s listenership was treated to six minutes of me gurgling like a bog clogged with a sock.

Fortunately I live in the magical age of the internet with its surplus of boobs and racists and status updates regarding who ate a muffin where. So I’m going to take this opportunity to tell you a little sexy sumthin’ sumthin' about one of my favourite spiders. It is both bad and long. Enjoy. 

A BLONG GUIDE TO HUNTSMAN SPIDERS

You might be familiar with Huntsman spiders from such things as your ceiling or your doona or above your bathroom door when you need to piss at 3am.  Because of their size, they tend to make people invert with fear till they’re just an iPhone with toes. For instance, here is a conversation I recently had with my boyfriend over breakfast.

Me: I’m going to talk about Huntsman spiders on 3RRR on Friday.

RFC: Why Huntsman?

Me: I guess I’m-

RFC: Can see one on me?

Me: No.

RFC: Jesus. There’s one on me.

Me: There’s not. 

RFC: Yes there is.

Waiter: Ready to order?

Me: Yes-

RFC: No. A spider is laying eggs in my ear.

People seem to think spiders launch themselves into existence with their fangs trained on humanity. And then they devote their 2-5 years on the planet to trying to kill us when we’re asleep or on the toilet or both.  In reality, spiders have a very simple brain that is great for doing what they need to do (catching prey, procreating, maintaining secret lives as AFL coaches) but not great for judging and punishing us as people- even if you’re the one who invented that ‘feminine’ spray that makes a woman’s undercarriage smell like a dead Barbie Doll. Although if you are that person, I sincerely hope Karma has crushed you into a soup. 

Unlike other spiders that ambush their foodstuffs, Huntsman chase down their prey- invertebrates and small skinks- over short distances like teeny tiny ratball-ugly lions. This means they need, and indeed have, great eyesight- a rarity in the spider world. Most spiders have between 6 to 8 eyes but honestly, who the fuck knows what the majority do with them. Tarantulas, for instance, are basically blind and rely heavily on the vibrations in their body hair to catch prey. Which is what I do too- which is why I rarely wax and how I got a boyfriend.

There are over 1000 species of Huntsman in the world, over 100 in Australia and if you live in Melbourne, 3 behind you right now. All have the same basic shape; flat bodies to help them hide under flat things such as bark and really tired supermodels; and long legs arranged in a crab-like configuration to help them scuttle sideways into your sock drawer. This side to side mobility is rare in spiders and means they are agile hunters, hence their name which if you can’t remember, is ‘Huntsman’ you stupid idiots, pay attention.

Now that you’re focused and I’m drunk, here is a brief rundown of the species of Huntsman spiders you’ll find in the greater Melbourne area. 

The Huntsman

Otherwise known as the Huntsman, there is no common name for the Huntsman so I like to call him the Huntsman- or the Huntsman for short. A timid spider that enjoys basic cognition and being huge, these guys are the ones most likely to spend time in our houses and can have a leg diameter of up to 160mm. Their bodies are grey and mottled like the trunks of the old eucalypts that should still be where our kitchens now stand. And if you park your car under a tree, you might find yourself having an argument with a Huntsman that involves him wanting to crawl across your steering wheel and you wanting to exit the vehicle whilst on a freeway.

The Badge Huntsman

Smaller than the Huntsman Classic and terracotta in colour, Badge Huntsman are named for the pattern of two eyes on the underside of their abdomen- a ploy that when they rear up, makes them appear bigger to predators. A bunch of other animals use these eye marks to fool predators including species of butterfly and frog and probably humans in their use of Cats: The Musical t-shirts when they’re on foot in a bad neighbourhood like Kew.

Yeah take that, Kew. I won’t stop till your decorative urns are filled with your tears, you well-mannered fucks.

Finally, we come to my favourite species.

The Social Huntsman

These guys and gals are red with black flourishes on the tips of their limbs. They are named for their social behaviour- a trait that is as rare in the arachnid world as me enjoying jazz is in the human. During times of mating, Social Huntsman form colonies of up to three generations of the same family, headed by a matriarch. The nest sites are usually found in old logs or behind loose eucalypt bark and they will be passed down from the dominant female to a dominant daughter over consecutive mating seasons to avoid anyone having to rejoin the housing market.

In 1990, this commendable disinterest in eating members of their own family thrust a group of Social Huntsman into the spotlight when they starred in the comedy horror hit Arachnophobia, alongside everyone’s dad, John Goodman, and everyone’s creepy-as-shit uncle, Julian Sands.  Over 400 Social Huntsman played the unholy babies of a Brazilian Tarantula called Pete* and were moved around set by professional spider wranglers armed with nothing more than their reflexes and some hairdryers set on ‘low’. Twenty-one years later and the legacy of that film is still being felt by a generation of me’s who, when crouched in the darkest recess of 3am, is convinced her death will involve both a spider crawling out of her nostril and Julian Sands leching over her corpse.

This leads me uncleanly, to my next point.

The Huntsman and You and possibly Julian Sands.  

Huntsman are fast, agile and possess fangs to catch prey and defend themselves. And that’s it. They’ve genuinely got nothing else, not even a snarky blog. As a result, they’ve managed to survive as a species because they’re great at risk assessment. A Huntsman deciding to attack a human for shits and giggles would be like us surveying a heavily armed military ship then lunging at its hull with a Paddlepop stick, before being sucked into a propeller. Even if the majority of your body weight is made up fangs like a mouse spider, going something 500 times your size is just not smart behaviour if you well, want to exist. And so Huntsman will run from the perceived threat (your hand), to perceived safety (your head). 

As roaming hunters, Huntsman will realise there is nothing to eat in your house within a few days and they will leave. But if you can’t wait that long or insist on keeping a cow carcass covered in flies in your hall, spray the Huntsman with water mist till it exits through an open window. Otherwise, the old take-away container and a Who Weekly/Financial Times/Baby Photo of a Baby You Hate should do the trick. Just escort them outside to an old tree or a patch of leaf litter, hug them tight against your bosom, stare into their 6-8 eyes and in a voice choked with sobs, whisper that you’ll always love them. Then kiss them with all the passion of Eros with a boner. Fade to black.  

In the highly unlikely event that you do get bitten, don’t start organizing a burial plot and reconciling with your mother. She can wait. Huntsman venom is filled with toxins that immobilise invertebrates, but only cause a small reaction in humans- localised swelling, some redness, nausea equivalent to that experienced when shown weird ‘incest-chic’ press photos of Angus and Julia Stone. So if you are bitten, you really only have two options available to you- either update Twitter or update Facebook. Any other course of action will be utterly useless.

A Final Words…

Superannuation. Mandatory participation in swimming relays. Experimental theatre. Coldplay. These are things to genuinely fear- not a leggy, timid spider that just wants to eat, sleep and get their fuck on with spiders of their kind. Be nice to Huntsman; they eat your house pests and are food for the possums that are in turn food for the owls that are in turn food for the skytigers that are themselves consumed by the giant laser orbs that circle the earth, producing ever more exciting mobile ringtones. In conclusion, it’s like Elton John’s monster hit “The Circle of Life” but even more factually inaccurate.   

Bless you all and I’ll see you again in the dead of night when you least expect it.

Koot MacNanaree

I’d like to thank Rowena, a live exhibits keeper at Museum Victoria. She assures me that even though she devotes much of her life to the care of Huntsman, she still hates handling them.

By the by, Rowena is currently rearing Huntsman spiderlings that are getting big and are in need of loving homes. So do contact me if you find Labrador puppies needy and drowsy kittens a bit ‘crass’.

* I’m not going to go into this too much, but having a primitive spider** give birth to 400 modern spiders ***was a massive continuity error that I’m sure enraged tens and tens of entomologists worldwide. I bet they even looted stuff- off their own desks of course, because they didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.

**He got them primitive book lungs and ‘pick-axe’ fangs and his ancestors have been fucking shit up for invertebrates and small rodents since the time of the dinosaurs.

*** They got them spiracle tubes as well as them book lungs and pincer-like fangs and they only came about 160 000 years ago. Evolution-wise, they’re teenagers and you can’t tell them what to do.