Man shares living room with giant huntsman spider

An Australian man has shared a terrifying photo of a giant huntsman spider, the size of a face perched on his living room wall, attracting praise and warnings from netizens on social media platforms.

Huntsman spiders are notoriously large and are known for their speed and methods of hunting (aka the name). Thanks to their huge appearance, they are also known as giant crab spiders, with some of the larger species known as wood spiders due to their love of woody areas – for example, woodpiles and forests.

Jake Gray initially saw it a year ago inside his Cairns home in Far North Queensland, only to find it had grown to a monstrous size 12 months later.

‘Check out this big girl… the mighty huntsman,’ he wrote on the Australian Spider Identification Facebook page after discovering it in his living room. The photo of the spider was also shared on Instagram by popular digital artist ‘BossLogic’.

While many netizens said the man is brave to have an arachnid as a pet, some said it isn’t wise to keep it at home.

A user commented: “The good old Huntsman. They are safe, but they will jump you!”

“What do you even do? Sell the house? Burn it down? I’m not kidding even one second. Do you talk to it? Offer it a cigarette?” wrote another.