A man captured a skin crawling moment when he opened the egg sac of a Huntsman spider, releasing hundreds of spiderlings onto his hand.
Adrian Kozakiewicz, a tropical insect collector and breeder in Germany, shared footage of himself tearing open the white sac, releasing tiny spiders that enveloped his fingers and moved onto his hand until them dropped one by one.
He shared the video on YouTube where it has received over 255,000 views – as well as hundreds of comments expressing every emotion from awe to horror.
And while the horde of spiders may appear terrifying, they are actually relatively harmless, especially as babies.
Adrian Kozakiewicz gently cradles a huntsman spider’s egg sac, which is woven out of the mother’s biological silk.
Commenters on Kozakiewicz’s ‘spider unboxing’ video were mostly unsettled by it.
‘You’ve lost your entire mind!!!!’ one commenter wrote. ‘I instantly started itching & feeling nauseous!!!! I COULDN’T even be your neighbor knowing you have all that sorcery aka the devils pets in your house! You’re a brave soul…. Crazy…but brave lol’
‘New fear unlocked,’ wrote another.
‘As a real arachnophobe, I’ll say that I really had a heart attack, thanks to the author,’ commented someone else.
Others were delighted, though.
‘Beautiful spiders,’ one viewer commented.
‘I can’t wait to get my Huntsman,’ another wrote.
The spiderlings will not reach adult size for another one to three years.
When they do, the arachnids will have a body length of 2.2 to 2.8 cm (about 1 inch), and have a leg span of seven to 12 cm (3 to 5 inches).
But for now, the babies are about the size of a freckle.
A clutch of young spiders are seen as pale, having not developed color through molting yet. The delicate silk can be ripped open easily, so the mother tends to guard her eggs while they develop.
Huntsman spiders don’t often bite people, and if they do it’s painful but not deadly.
Instead, they tend to run away when they encounter danger – as in this video.
Kozakiewicz is a breeder, and as can be seen in the video, the baby spiders are falling into an enclosure where they will probably live as they start to grow.
In their natural environments, though, a huntsman spider would be unlikely to let another animal rip open her egg sac – at least not without a fight.
When it’s time for the female huntsman spider to lay her eggs, she will often weave a white, oval sac out of silk, according to the Australian Museum.
She lays up to 200 eggs in the sac and hides it somewhere it is unlikely to be snatched by a bird or other predator looking for an easy snack.
Often the huntsman mother will stash her developing eggs under a rock or under the bark of a tree.
There are many species of huntsman spider, though, and not all of them have the same habits.
Dozens and possibly hundreds of huntsman spiderlings swarm Adrian Kozakiewicz’s hands as he rips open their egg sac.
Some will attach the egg sac to their underbelly and carry it around.
The mother will stand guard, often without eating, for the three weeks or so that it takes for the eggs to grow and develop into spiderlings.
When they hatch, the mother will stay with them until they can fend for themselves, which can be several weeks.
Spiders, like their insect and crab relatives, molt as they grow.
Once they outgrow an exoskeleton, they shed it and a new one hardens in its place.
The huntsman spider can be up to 30 cm (11.8 in) across, which has earned it the common name of ‘crab spider.’
This is what happens for the huntsman spiderlings’ first few weeks of life.
Born pale, they molt several times while still with their mother.
With each molt, they darken a bit, and their exoskeleton gets a bit harder.
Eventually, they are fully brown and they disperse, going to make their own way in the world.
There are more than 1,300 species of huntsman spider, most of which are native to warm and temperate tropical regions of the world.
The spider receives its name from its stalking, chasing, and killing habits.
While its food is varied, some can eat prey as large as a lizard.
People in Australia will sometimes find them in their homes, but the spiders pose little risk to humans.
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