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'Is this real?': Tourists 'horrified' over mammoth creepy crawly

It's no secret to the rest of the world that Australia is home to some of the deadliest spiders and snakes on earth, but a photo of a huntsman spider has gone viral with many non-Aussies shocked at how big they can be.

Posted in a Facebook group, one user shared a photo she had found on social media of a large spider inside a home with a comment that read, "I'm in Australia and woke up to one of these crawling over my face once.

Social media users were shocked to find out that such huge spiders exist in Australia. Photo: Facebook
Social media users were shocked to find out that such huge spiders exist in Australia. Photo: Facebook

"I still don't kill them though because they are harmless. If I find one inside I just get it to crawl on a broom and take it outside, same as I did when I found a 2 metre snake in my house."

The shocked Facebook user captioned the snap: "I know a lot of members hail from Australia. I have to ask, is this real??"

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Aussies quickly flooded the comments saying the spider was in fact a huntsman and was harmless.

"Very very real," one user wrote. "Harmless though, just look terrifying! If you Google how many people are killed by these, you'll come up short! I leave mine were I find him. He gets any bugs they make their way inside that DO bite."

"Just a Huntsman and we have a 2m carpet snake living in the roof," another chimed in, joking, "We don’t have a mice problem."

"Huntsman are beautiful. Yes it’s real. They get pretty big," someone else added.

Chris Hemsworth showcased how big Huntsman spiders can get when he shared this photo on Halloween in 2015. Photo: Instagram/ChrisHemsworth
Chris Hemsworth showcased how big Huntsman spiders can get when he shared this photo on Halloween in 2015. Photo: Instagram/ChrisHemsworth

"But just eat your insects. Hopefully the cockroaches. Those damn cockroaches are huge!"

Even those Aussies who are scared of spiders said they would never kill one, "I have arachnophobia but I will ALWAYS spare a huntsman.

"They keep all the spiders and critters that could actually make humans very sick or rot their flesh- far away from us."

However, it wasn't enough to convince the overseas crowd with one person writing, "Yeah and how many of those crawl in your mouth while you’re sleeping? That’s a hard no from me... Never going to Australia."

"A really good reason to not live in Australia," another added.

Some were very confused: "What I really want to know is how Aussies commenting on here are all like, 'Oh, no big deal... they are harmless. We don't mind them in our houses, etc.'

"HOW!? Spiders are creeepppyyy... and when you make them 10 times the size of the ones in the U.S. they are just straight up 'nope', burn the house down!"

Some were horrified to find out the image hadn't been Photoshopped: "You guys are supposed to say no it’s Photoshopped. I want to visit Australia so bad but I am terrified!"

Others simply labelled the spider as "evil": "No way. WTF kind of evil is that?! They're real?! I'd burn the whole house down if I ever saw one!!!"

"Yeahhhh that’s a whole lot of NOPE!" someone else wrote.

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