Dad Catches Giant Huntsman Spider With Bare Hands in Shocking Viral Video

An Australian father is going viral for a video of him catching a massive huntsman spider with his bare hands.

Stephen Walker, who goes by @stephenwalker34 on TikTok, uploaded the video on December 23 and received more than 336,000 views and 860 comments.

"Straya baby spiders," the on-screen text read as Walker approached a spider that was crawling along a wall inside the house.

"Catch the little spider," Walker said casually as he cupped his hands and attempted to catch the spider.

The footage showed Walker attempting to grab the huntsman spider by cupping his bare hands, but the spider was able to quickly crawl away. With his quick instincts, Walker was able to successfully capture the spider.

As Walker attempted to show the spider to the camera, it hopped out of his grasp.

After jumping out of his hands and onto his bare arm, but Walker remained calm. While never losing his calm demeanor, Walker once again caught the spider.

"There it is," he said with his fist around the large huntsman.

In the comments, many users said they would have quickly run away if they witnessed a spider that big. Even users who said they were from Australia said they were shocked by the size.

'I'm in Australia and I still sh** my pants when I see a spider 5x smaller than that,' one user commented.

"LITTLE??! I'm Australian and I would move to France if I saw that in my house," another user wrote.

But other users were confused why people seemed so fazed by the spider.

"wait...this isn't normal? me and my mates would catch these types of spiders in primary school," one user admitted.

Some even mentioned that they thought spiders were "cute" and that while huntsman spiders are notoriously large, they are known for being less harmful than other large species.

While huntsman spiders are venomous, their bites do not kill humans. Unlike most spider species, huntsmans do not use webs to catch their food. Instead – as their name suggests – they hunt down their prey.

There are several subspecies of huntsmans, but the average species has a leg span of up to five inches while the giant huntsman can have a leg span up to 12 inches. This makes it the largest spider in diameter.

In other videos, Walker showed other huntsman spiders he had caught in the past.

"Because the last video was just a baby," the caption of the video read.

The video showed various photos of Walker next to some massive spiders. In some of the photos, the spiders looked larger than Walker's hand.

In another video, Walker's son filmed him joking around with a baby spider crawling around his head. Walker joked that he was trying to "catch a spider" as it crawled along his ears, head, and face.