I’ve finally found out what kind of spider that lives in my apartment. It’s called a Brown Huntsman Spider (Heteropoda venatoria). I really didn’t research on it. I just read it in a book about keeping tarantulas as a pet while waiting for Resie at the National Bookstore. There is this part in the book about tarantula look alikes and I saw one look-alike on the book that matches the one in my apartment. So I did a little bit or research to verify this, and when I say little, I just visited Wikipedia about it.

I know that seeing a spider this big (with a legspan of 5-6 inches) will really give you a scare. but is it dangerous? The answer is: NO! Here’s what Wikipedia says:

“In general, Huntsman spiders are not regarded as dangerous, and can be considered beneficial because they feed on insects (Many Australians will relocate Huntsmen to the garden rather than kill them).”

“Brown huntsmen are welcomed in many homes as they feed on pests such as cockroaches and silverfish.”

So I just let those spiders go around the apartment and surprisingly, there aren’t any roaches and other crawling insects. Hopefully this information would be helpful in case you see one and let it live an eat roaches instead of kill it for it’s horrendous look.

By the way, one brown huntsman spider lurks in my girlfriends house. It actually tried to bit me when I poked it. Hahaha! There are no roaches in my apartment. Don’t kill it, it’s a natural anti-roach.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 10:17 am and is filed under Apartment Life in Baguio City, Information you would like, Lightened Minds . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.