Huntsman Spider
Isopeda sp.
 NEW There's an alternative version of this page at the new website www.ark.au/huntsman-spider.html
Family:
Size: Male body 14-18 mm, Female 21-23 mm
Distribution: All over Australia
Habitat:
References:
About the Huntsman SpiderA great many Isopeda species are found all over Australia. Danger: I picked up a large huntsman in my hands once, when I was a teenager and I wanted to look tough. I would not recommend trying this (nor would I do it now) as they can bite. Though the bite is not deadly it can still hurt. Another time, an ex-girlfriend told me that her new boyfriend picked up one and it bit him on the hand :D Though it didn't do that much harm, just some pain. Based on these experiences it may be possible that they only bite bad people, and not good people.
Note that dead spiders usually fade in colour, so nearly all the spiders will look blacker or darker in colour in real life than they do in the photos of dead spiders from the museum. 
Photo taken at Australian Museum, Sydney. High Resolution 2712 x 2244.
Photo taken at Australian Museum, Sydney. High Resolution 3883 x 2437.
Photo taken at Australian Museum, Sydney.
Photo taken at Australian Museum, Sydney. High Resolution 4024 x 2708.
Recommended Reading
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A Guide to the Spiders of Australia, by Volker W. Framenau, Barbara C. Baehr, and Paul Zborowski. This is a great field guide to Australian spiders. It's a toss up between this one and Spiderwatch for my second favourite spider field guide. This one is a lot different to Spiderwatch. It's got more than twice the number of pages. It's got much better photos. It comes with a soft clear plastic cover protecting the usual soft cover. On the other side of the argument, it's got no index other than an index of family names (i.e. no index of actual spider names, not their common names and not their scientific names). Which makes it hard to find things in it, if you don't know what family they are in. Also it's based on families and not individual spider species. It's still a wonderful book though. From the publisher, "This definitive guide to the subject, written by three experts in the field, offers a window into a fascinating world. Notorious species such as the Redback and the Sydney Funnel-web sit alongside less wellknown but equally intriguing spiders such as the ant-mimics and net-casting spiders. The introduction covers spider structure, evolution, reproduction, silk and venom, together with peculiarities of the family within an Australian context.
The two main sections of the book deal with Trapdoor Spiders and Modern Spiders, and within each section there is a chapter on each of the 80 or so spider families that occur in Australia. Each is illustrated with beautiful photographs of the subjects, with more than 30 images per family for some of the larger groups such as the jumping spiders, and many rare images never before published. "
Purchase from Amazon.com.au (Australian Site)
| See Also
Australian Mammals
Australian Birds
Australian Reptiles
Australian Frogs
Australian Fish
Australian Wild Plant Foods
Return to Australian Spiders
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