Man finds horrifying huge nest of Huntsman spiders lurking in his shed

A hoard of long-legged, venomous huntsman spiders were found in an unsuspecting nest box as conservationists lifted the lid on an arachnophobe’s deepest and darkest fear

If you suffer with arachnophobia, look away now as a picture showing a colony of one of the world’s most dangerous spiders is currently doing the rounds on the internet.

In the image, a large group of huntsman spiders invaded a nest box intended for possums, despite the fact that they usually reside in trees.

The spiders, which are a part of the Sparassidae family, can grow as big as 11.8 inches (30cm), and are famously the world’s scariest predators.

The creepy crawlies were found by Bush Heritage Australia after conservationists lifted the lid on a possum’s nest box.

Bush Heritage Australia is a not-for-profit organisation that buys and manages land for conservation.

The conservationists from the Monjebup North reserve in southwest WA, Australia, were left shocked by the revelation.

Angela Sanders, of Bush Heritage Australia, told The Sun : “Pygmy possums quickly took up resident in the nest boxes we erected in restored habitat.

“What we didn’t expect were the large colonies of social spiders that also moved in.

“It all started about the same time we were finding pygmy possums in the boxes.

“But on lifting the lids of some, we found many huntsman spiders of all sizes whizzing around inside.”

The horrifying image, which was published in 2019, is enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine but luckily, the spiders were kept safe at the reserve in their new found home and out of harm’s way.

In most cases, the spiders are found living under loose bark on trees or under rocks.

They tend to reside in temperate to tropical areas of the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean Basin and the Americas.

The huntsman spider is so called due to their quick speed, large size and tendency to hunt down prey.

When it comes to hunting, they use their venom to immobilise their prey, and have been known to cause serious harm on humans due to their bite

Despite this, the spider’s venom is not deadly to humans.

If you happen to cross a huntsman spider’s path, bite symptoms can include swelling, nausea, headaches, pain, vomiting, irregular pulse rate, and heart palpitations.

It is more likely that you will be bitten by a male huntsman spider rather than a female as they will only cause harm if there is a threat to their their egg sacs or babies.

Recently, a large huntsman spider was spotted in a man’s boot while he was cleaning out his car.

Jared Splatt, who made the shocking discovery, said: “I encountered the horrific sight on opening my car boot, which incidentally hadn’t been opened in a good while.

“I was cleaning out the car to drop some friends off to a winery and I’m now glad I opened the boot.

“I was greeted with a giant huntsman and egg sac on the left hand side.

“My initial response was revulsion but then seeing the bloody thing guarding the egg sac took it to another level.”

Mr Splatt soon dealt with the spider as he admitted: “The realisation I could have hundreds of baby huntsman’s crawling through the car quickly turned it into an annihilation mission.”

“I grabbed the can of mortein and went to town – scorched earth like Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder.

“I flicked it off the car, covered it in white chemical death and then promptly stomped on the egg sac; some green goop shot out.”