It may send shivers down the spine - but it’s often said that if you can handle the common huntsman round your house you may find them a useful guest. Despite their long legs and hairy bodies, huntsman spiders aren’t actually considered dangerous to humans, and they may even be a huge help if you have a cockroach problem.
'If you’re going to have a spider running around the house, make it a harmless huntsman,’ says Ranger Mick.
As for that saying that we swallow spiders in our sleep? Rob Crawford, Curator of Arachnids at Seattle’s Burke Museum, says it’s pretty unlikely. If nothing else - a spider is not going to totter happily into an open mouth, exhaling hot air.
'Just try blowing on a spider and see how they react to that!' Crawford says. 'It’s not attractive to them!'
Ranger Mick can’t help but leave us with one last spine-tingling fact. Even if you may never swallow one: ‘Huntsmen can walk across you and you wouldn’t know.’
