In general, members of the huntsman family of spiders are not regarded as dangerous. That being said, there are reports of members of the genus Neosparassus (formerly called Olios) giving bites that have caused prolonged pain, inflammation, headache, vomiting, and irregular pulse rate. It is unclear under what circumstances these spiders bite people, but it is known that female members of this family are quite brave in defending their egg sacs and their young.

Huntsman spiders are fairly large, and they make a readily apparent threat display when their nests are threatened. Ordinarily members of this family run away from humans with great celerity, but if someone were to ignore a mother spider's threat display then they might get bitten. These spiders can move at extremely high speeds for their size, and a human who had become accustomed to the relatively slow responses of other spiders might tease a spider and then be unable to escape its attack. The eyesight of these spiders is not nearly as good as that of the Salticidae (jumping spiders), and it is possible that a huntsman spider might misidentify a human's finger as a tempting caterpiller, rush over, and bite it by mistake.

These spiders are not averse to entering automobiles and houses, so many humans have noticed them. They are notorious in Australia for appearing on the dashboards of automobiles at inopportune moments. They are large as well as being extremely fast, and, besides that, they can run on surfaces such as glass window panes, walls, and ceilings, and may remain on those surfaces for long periods of time searching for prey. Therefore it is more than a little likely that they will quickly draw attention to themselves whenever they happen to enter areas frequented by people. Fortunately for humans, however, they are generally good neighbors and they are avid hunters of detested insect pests such as cockroaches.

External links

• Australian Huntsman spiders
• European Huntsman spider
• Australian Huntsman
• Fact sheet Australian museum online
• Fact sheet Museum Victoria