A spider that is so large that it can consume a possum is the stuff of nightmares. After being published on the Internet, the picture of a sizable ʜᴜɴᴛsman spider consuming its mamMᴀʟɪan meal quickly spread throughout the world.
Justine Latton posted the images of the spider eating a pygmy possum at Mount Field Lodge and it has since been shared more than 7000 times. According to Latton, her husband saw the enormous spider with the tiny possum wedged between a couple of its legs when he was staying at the ski lodge and took the image.
Ms. Latton, a native of Nᴇᴡ Zᴇᴀʟᴀɴᴅ, claimed she has observed numerous ʜᴜɴᴛsman spiders throughout the nearly two decades she has lived in Tasmania. She said that she didn’t like the eight-legged creatures. Never have she witnessed a spider capturing a mammal. She supposed that’s why there was so much interest in it.
The spider, according to the Aᴜsᴛʀᴀʟɪᴀn Museum, is a common species of long-legged tarantula in Aᴜsᴛʀᴀʟɪᴀ. The average body length of a spider is 0.5 inches for males and up to 0.8 inches for females. The length of its legs can extend to 5.9 inches.
According to the museum, spiders are frequently discovered living beneath loose bark on trees, in cracks in rock walls and logs, under rocks and bark slabs on the ground, and on foliage.