Creepy Crawlies

Ah, the Huntsman. They’re big, creepy, and fast! It turns out that most of the critters here, even the dangerous ones, are quite skittish. Huntsman are no exception. It would be much easier to catch them if they stood their ground. But, rationally, they are scared of us. We could easily crush them to death. What can they do to us? A little pinch of a bite. Painful, sure, but nothing you wouldn’t get over in an hour. It’s silly, but when confronted with one there is a powerful urge to not be in the room anymore. Anywhere else would be preferable. Even Adrienne hates them, and she’d be excited to find the Sydney funnel web, (dramatic voice)Australia’s most toxic spider(/dramatic voice)! We’ve heard the story twice now of the person who jumps out of their moving car because they put the visor down to have a huntsman fall in their lap. You see, huntsman usually live under tree bark. They like dark, tight spaces. A car’s sun visor is the next best thing!

The female huntsman. Much larger body than the male, but a little shorter in the legs. A bit smaller overall.

They’re the large spider that everyone hears about from Australia. When I told people we were coming here, one of the things I heard was “that’s where all the big-spider-in-the-shower pictures come from!” I came here prepared to find one every other day. Then we didn’t. In fact, at first, the worst thing we had was a few moths. Then we got a few cockroaches (more on these later.) I relaxed. This made finding two back-to-back so much worse. In my opinion, the second, the female, was the creepier of the two. I helped a bit in the capture of the first, but Adrienne captured the second before I even knew it existed. We eventually set both free: creepiness is certainly not a death sentence. We kept the female overnight, and I figured maybe looking at it every now and then would acclimate me to it. Nope. Still really creepy, and I will definitely jump on the nearest high surface when we find another. Not that that will help much, they’re expert climbers.

And now an interesting note about cockroaches: Australian cockroaches are considered very beneficial. They stay in gardens and help fertilize and generally keep green areas healthy. The pest cockroaches that are here are all invaders. They’re mostly European, and vary widely in size. We’ve found tiny little ones, smaller than a dime, and ones larger than a half-dollar. The Australian ones aren’t fast and skittery. Apparently some people consider them good pets. The European ones are a pain to remove because they’re fast and squeeze under anything. However, we have found that stuffing a sweatshirt at the base of our door greatly reduces the number of bugs that make it inside. Hurray solutions!