Armidale woman finds huge huntsman spider under car door handle

What she found lurking under her car door handle has put her off driving, with the woman claiming she hasn’t used her car in a week after the shock discovery.

A woman in northern New South Wales made a terrifying discovery under her car door handle that has left her too scared to drive.

Christine Jones posted photos to the Australian Spider Identification page on Facebook on Monday after spotting a truly massive spider lurking under the handle of her car door in Armidale.

She said she hasn’t used her car for a week after spotting the spider, which she initially thought was a group of hairy caterpillars.

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Christine claims she hasn't driven the car in a week.

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Members of the group identified the huge critter as a huntsman spider.

“Just a huntsman trying to avoid the sun … not sure a metal door is the best option,” one user wrote.

The post received more than 200 comments before the comments were closed following the identification of the spider and several violations of the group’s rules including swearing and “people advocating harm to spiders”.

Christine claims she hasn't driven the car in a week.

Facebook users were initially confused about the size of the spider due to the way the two images were cropped and appeared on the social media platform.

The real-life size of the spider is scary enough, but the two images were cropped in a way that made it appear as if there was a huge spider crawling out the window of Christine’s car according to some commenters.

Facebook's automatic crop had people thinking the spider was much bigger than it was.

“This cropping did my head in,” one user wrote.

“I saw that as you looking through the open window at a huge huntsman,” said another.

“I thought it was a giant one the size of my head, I just realised it’s in the car door handle,” another wrote.