Researchers now say that it may be home to the world's fastest lunging predator. The karaops spider is a small and flat spider found only in Australia. The spider is a predator that gets its food by killing and eating other insects.
Some of the fastest huntsman can cover 30-40 times their body length a second – up to 5m metres persecond for some of the biggest spiders.. This is around half the maximum speed of Usain Bolt!
Fastest spider
The speediest spider on Earth is the desert-dwelling Moroccan flic-flac spider (Cebrennus rechenbergi), which can reach speeds of up to 1.7 m/s (3.8 mph) when trying to escape predators.
Bills extolled the huntsman's speed: "They can often be quite large and very quick." In fact, the huntsman spider can move up to a yard (almost 1 meter) a second, she said. The spider typically lives under loose bark on trees, under rocks, in crevices and under foliage.
Researchers from the University of California Merced and the California Academy of Sciences have found that flattie spiders — from the spider family Selenopidae — make the fastest leg-driven turn of any land animal on the planet. Their findings were published this week in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
If it decides to do so, then it selects the effect. The spider can spawn with following effects: Speed (40% chance) Strength (20% chance)
Spiders, whether venomous or not, don't usually bite unless provoked. If they feel threatened, they may try to defend themselves by biting or jumping at you. Your best bet for keeping out of spider confrontations is to keep an eye out for them and avoid crossing paths.
These spiders are venomous but have very mild venom which is not considered dangerous to humans. Most are very reluctant to bite, and will attempt to run away from any threats they encounter. Contrary to popular belief, huntsman spiders do not chase people. They do not see like we do, and cannot see us from a distance.
They can bite you, but they won't do any harm. "Huntsmen are super fast but they get confused, so if a huntsman is running towards you, it's confused. They're not aggressive spiders at all and they generally stay high up because that's where they're finding the food they want to eat."
Do huntsman spiders intentionally chase you? No. If you try to catch a huntsman and it runs towards you, it isn't attacking. It is trying to get to a safe place, away from the giant human thing looming over it.
You can outrun a spider
But even at full pelt they reach about 1 mph – so there is no way they could outrun you. They are the cheetahs of the spider world – a short sprint and then they have to take a breather.
Probably the most well-known and most feared spider is the black widow. Most people know the black widow by its iconic red hourglass under its abdomen. They are the deadliest spider with venom 15 more times worse than that of a rattlesnake.
The Australian funnel-web spiders are among the deadliest spiders in the world in the effect their bites have on humans and our primate relations (although the bite has little effect on dogs and cats). There are many species of funnel-web spiders in Australia but only male Sydney Funnel-webs have caused human deaths.
A large species of tarantula native to the east coast region of Australia, the whistling spider, is the largest spider in the country. As the largest spider in Australia, whistling spiders can grow a leg span of up to 16 cm (6.2 inches) and a body size of around 6 cm (2.3 inches).
Huntsman spiders are a non-aggressive group of spiders. They are very timid and will try to avoid and when encountered can move at lighting-fast speed to escape human contact. However, a large individual can give a painful bite. Beware in summer when the female Huntsman Spider is guarding her egg sacs or young.
A easily made solution to the issue that works fast is to create a spray with peppermint or citrus, whilst they smell nice to us, spiders absolutely despise these scents which will prevent them coming into your property if you are to regularly spray down potential entrances.
Huntsman spiders can live for up to two years. As they can move very quickly, instead of using a broom or an object they can run along to move them, try to slowly and gently place a container over them and push a piece of paper underneath. You can now carry them safely outside to release them.
Sometimes when we get too close or disturb them, they treat us like they would treat any predator. Many spiders have threat displays intended to scare off predators, such as rearing up or lunging. Biting in self-defence is another strategy that spiders can use when they are afraid for their lives.
There's not enough food inside a house for a huntsman spider, so they're best off outside." Dr Harvey said the safest method, for both people and spiders, was to use a container. He said while they can give a painful bite, they don't pose a risk to humans.
"It's pretty unlikely to ever happen," says an insect expert. PHEW. A chill of arachnophobia trickled across Australia this week after a NSW spider expert claimed it's "very likely" huntsman spiders have crawled across your face while you slept.
Spider-Sense
Spiders can detect danger coming their way with an early-warning system called eyes. You probably expected that. But that's not all: their most important source of information about the world and its hazards comes from highly sensitive hairs that cover the bodies of most spiders.
Spiders do not sleep in the same way that humans do, but like us, they do have daily cycles of activity and rest. Spiders can't close their eyes because they don't have eyelids but they reduce their activity levels and lower their metabolic rate to conserve energy.
Zack explained that spiders have a number of small lenses on the top of their heads. These simple lenses let them see changes in light and dark. It's probably a pretty blurry view, he said. There are more than 40,000 spider species on Earth.