Michigan mother’s hilarious reaction to harmless Huntsman spider

WHILE Huntsman spiders are no big deal to us in Australia, an American mother was so scared she called her father, the pet shop and the media.

AN AMERICAN mum has showed just how tough Aussies are compared to the Yanks.

Jillian Duke spotted something on the wall in her son’s room and realised it was a “giant spider that needed a leash”.

The terrified woman from Michigan had never seen anything like it and posted a picture of the “monster” to Facebook and called her dad

“Thank God daddy came over to get it out. Mind you, he’s almost 73 and has lived, travelled and worked all over the world and has never seen a spider like this,” she wrote.

“My dad thinks it’s poisonous for sure. He practically ripped (my son’s) room apart to make sure there weren’t any more.”

Ms Duke said she was going to call a vet or animal clinic to find out what kind it is.

Little did she know, it was just a harmless Huntsman and something Aussies everywhere battle regularly, in fact, we’ve probably even seen bigger.

Americans were shocked by the size of the spider. WXYZ reports the spider came from a plant she bought at a big box store.

Ms Duke contacted spider experts at the Cranbrook Institute of Science and they confirmed it was just a Huntsman spider.

They claimed it was one of the biggest spiders in the world but was only harmful if people were bitten and had an allergic reaction to venom.

Most assume Huntsman spiders are Australian, but there are 1207 species of Huntsman spiders in the world, and just 155 species in Australia.

Linda Rayor from the department of Entomology at Cornell University told The Conversation the Huntsman descended from a single common ancestor the immigrated from Papua New Guinea or elsewhere in Southeast Asia.