So, for everyone saying it’s Photoshop, here’s her real video. pic.twitter.com/2Zcro0nra7January 28, 2021
The tapping of small feet in a child’s room is a happy sound – except perhaps when those feet belong to hundreds of babies hunting spiders.
“Gaaaahhhhhhhh, a friend of mine in Sydney just walked into her daughter’s room and found this,” Hobart, Australian resident, Peta Rogers tweeted on January 27th. Rogers’ friend in Sydney, who asked not to be identified on social media, sent Rogers photos and a video of her daughter’s room, after the teenager said to her “Mom, we have a lot of spiders up there,” the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) reported on January 30th.
When Rogers’ friend went to investigate, she found some spiders in the corner of the room. “This is not so bad, maybe 50 or 60,” she says in the video. And then she turned the camera to another corner, revealing at least twice as many spider cubs squatting on the walls and ceiling.
“They are so cute!” she exclaims.
Related: In photos: The incredible arachnids of the world
While the Sydney woman was filming her long-legged guests, she speculated that they were baby hunting spiders, which belong to the Sparassidae spider family and are common in Australia and elsewhere in hot climates. A kind of hunter, the giant hunting spider (Heteropoda maxima) from Laos, has a wingspan of up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) and is the largest spider in the world in diameter. But the average hunter has a leg span of no more than 5 inches (12.7 cm) and a body length of just 1 inch (2.5 cm) in length.
During the summer in Australia, hunter populations explode and it is not uncommon for spiders to enter people’s homes, Nine News from Australia reported on Monday (February 1st). In fact, many Sydney residents reported infestations of hunters that week, probably because of the recent weather, according to ABC. A low pressure front after several days of high temperatures brought rain and humidity; Hunting spiders often seek shelter in human houses when the heat and humidity are very intense, because the houses offer many safe nooks and crannies where spiders can hide – and where females can lay their eggs, said arachnologist Robert Raven, head of Australia’s Terrestrial Biodiversity Queensland Museum.
However, this type of climate also brings favorable conditions for the hatcher’s eggs to hatch, Raven added.
“Low blood pressure is one of the triggers for the emergence of the egg pouch,” Raven told ABC. The hot, humid air is ideal for baby thin-skinned spiders, which dehydrate quickly when conditions are very dry, and a pouch of eggs can contain hundreds of baby hunters – which can lead to mass infestations, such as the video.
Unfortunately, these dense clusters of fluffy spider cubs do not last long, as the cubs are “highly cannibalistic” and quickly begin to devour each other in a day or two, said arachnologist Lizzie Lowe, postdoctoral fellow at Behavioral Ecology Group at Australia’s Macquarie University, told Nine News.
Originally published on Live Science.