Patrik Berg/FacebookMeet Martha, an absolutely ginormous ‘monster’ bird-eating spider, who was found hanging from a web in front of a garage in Australia – obviously.
The huge, golden orb spider – which eat flies, beetles and moths, as well as small birds or bats – was seen guarding a house in Buderim, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
Patrik Berg snapped the photo of the beast back in November 2016, however it’s only recently made the rounds online after being posted to Reddit by his friend.
The photo, originally posted on Berg’s Facebook page, shows the grey-bodied, black-legged arachnid dangling from a web, with his brother-in-law’s hand behind it.
Patrik Berg/FacebookBerg told Daily Mail Australia:
I’ve seen some big ones before but not like that. She was an absolute monster. We were just going to have a barbecue and a couple of beers and I saw it as we pulled up in the driveway and just went ‘holy dooley’. He was holding his hand 5-10cm away from it. That was the closest he wanted to get to the beauty.
The actual length of the body in the photo was about 7cm and as thick as my thumb. With the leg span the spider was probably 17cm big. I wasn’t scared, I was amazed and struck by the beauty of it. I think they’re a gorgeous creature.
We just left it and took some pictures. They don’t live very long and one day she was gone. They’re quite common, especially in Buderim, there’s some big insects and lots of natural forests and rainforests.
It was likely a female golden orb spider, which are generally larger than their male counterpart – often growing to well over 12cm. While their venom is effective on prey, their venom isn’t lethal for humans, although a bite will cause a bit of numbing and swelling.
For someone with arachnophobia, there’s far too many terrifying spider pictures on the web these days. Thanks.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.