Huntsman Spider

• It is a household ally: in the tropics it is tolerated indoors because it keeps cockroaches in check.
• Its extremely flattened body lets it slip into cracks and behind pictures and frames with only a few millimetres of clearance.
• The males produce an audible drumming by striking their abdomen against dry leaves to attract females.
• It is one of the world's most cosmopolitan spiders: native to South-East Asia, it has travelled with maritime trade for centuries and today lives in warm regions of every continent.
• It is called the banana spider because it frequently arrives in shipments of tropical fruit, causing regular scares in European supermarkets and warehouses.
• It is flat, with long, sideways-directed legs, which lets it slip into the narrowest crevices and run at great speed up vertical surfaces.
• It spins no web: it is an active nocturnal hunter, and in tropical homes it is considered beneficial because it eats cockroaches.
• Its bite is painful but of no medical significance.
• The male courts by drumming his abdomen against the substrate, producing a buzz audible to people.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (arachnid)

Habitat & environment

Houses, warehouses and vegetation in tropical regions worldwide

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteropoda_venatoria