Australia certainly isn’t for those faint of heart! One Coppabella local had a very interesting thing to see in his neighbor’s home; something that is not unusual for the continent, but still very curious.
When Jason Womal got out of home to start his day, he heard his neighbor’s scream and went over to help. Luckily he had his camera phone with to capture the encounter on the spot. Jason says: “I was on my way to work, heading down towards my car, when my neighbor scared the buggery out of me by asking if I wanted to see a Huntsman spider eating a mouse in his house.”
Hermie the Huntsman spider caught a domestic mouse and was dragging the unfortunate rodent across the wall of the neighbor’s fridge! This is one of those things you only get to see in Australia, folks!
Huntsman spiders are common in Australia, but also in many warm-temperate-to-tropical parts of the world (sorry to say this!). They have been accidentally introduced to many parts of the world, including South America, southern parts of the United States, such as Florida, Guam and Puerto Rico and western parts of Texas and Northwest Tennessee.
In general they are likely to be found wherever ships may bring them as unintended passengers to areas that are not too cold for them to survive in the winter. In southern Africa they are commonly known as rain spiders because of their tendency to seek shelter before rain storms, often entering human habitations when doing so.