Largest giant huntsman spider in Australia gets set to be milked for venom
The giant spider was found crawling up the side of the couple's home in their courtyard - Representational Image

A couple from Queensland, Australia were busy preparing dinner when they encountered an uninvited guest — a giant huntsman spider. Lauren Ansell from Mount Coolum told the Sunshine Coast Daily that the giant spider was found crawling up the side of her home .

"(The spider) was preventing us from using our BBQ," Ansell told the Daily. "We made it unhappy as we tried to move it so we could cook."

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Ansell said that the spider appeared to be harmless, but did not seem to appreciate their efforts to move it.

She said that her partner was on the other side of the glass door trying to prepare a meal and their efforts to move the spider only seemed to made it angry. "My partner was on the outside trying to cook our food. We didn't want to kill it, but it didn't like us for trying to move it along," she told Daily Mail Australia.

She said they attempted to move it from their glass door and her partner tried to spook it with their cat, Aurora.

Video footage shared with Daily Mail Australia shows the cat appearing very rigid as Ansell's partner approached the spider holding Aurora in his hands.

The spider later ran off into their garden and they haven't seen it since, Ansell said. "It's massive and was mean, but it's alive and we didn't want to kill it."

She said she named the spider Aragog, after the giant spiders in the Harry Potter series.

Earlier in May, a huntsman spider created a ripple in southern England. Residents contacted the RSPCA after discovering the spider, which was the size of a man's hand, on the wall of their house in Sevenoaks, Kent.

"I honestly expected to get there and find a big house spider or a toy spider or something silly but it was a Huntsman," RSPCA animal collection officer Louis Horton said.

What are huntsman spiders?

Huntsman spiders are large, long-legged anthropods. They are mostly grey to brown, sometimes with banded legs and measure up to 15cm across the legs.

The larger specimens of the huntsman spider, called wood spiders, are found in most parts of Australia, due to their preference for woody habitats.

Huntsman spiders are a diverse and relatively harmless group of spiders. Considering they are not very dangerous to humans many Australians would rather relocate them to the garden than kill them. However, a bite can result in prolonged pain, inflammation, headache, vomiting and irregular pulse rate.