Forget pizza rat and cigarette crab and prepare yourself for spider mouse, the super strong and very hungry Australian arachnid

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Australia’s litany of fearsome fauna seems to have a new entry. Added to deadly snakes, man-eating crocodiles and poisonous jellyfish comes Hermie the huntsman, a spider so unusually large and strong that it had no problem carrying a sizeable mouse up the outside of a fridge.

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Hermie’s feat was captured on film by Jason Wormal, a tradesman from Coppabella in Queensland, who was heading out to work in the early hours of Monday morning when he says he received an offer from a neighbour that he couldn’t refuse.

“So I am just about to leave for work about 0030 and me neighbour says ‘You want to see something cool’ and I say ‘Hell yeah’, he wrote on Facebook.

“So we proceed to his place and he shows me this. Huntsman trying to eat a mouse.”

On the video shot by Wormal a voice can be heard off screen wondering in amazement: “What’s he gonna do with him? Man that is so cool”.

Stills taken of the spider seem to show the arachnid clutching the mouse by its head with its chelicerae while it scurries up the fridge.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Facebook user Jason Womal posts a video showing a large spider dragging a mouse along what appears to be a fridge. Photograph: Facebook/Jason Womal

The footage quickly circulated online and by Monday afternoon had been viewed more than 6.5m times.

Among the 41,000 comments below the original post were many expressing deep horror at the strength of the spider. Anthony Candelaria Sanchez summed up the general feeling with the simple statement: “Oh hell no.”

Arachnophobes may think about giving Coppabella a miss Arachnophobes may think about giving Coppabella a miss

In a later post, Wormal assures his friends that the spider is alive and well.

“Ok guys so just letting you all know that the spider is fine. We have named him Hermie, we have adopted him and he is now running his own extermination business out of our town Coppabella. Oh and he is now paying rent. Lol.”

Graham Milledge, the manager of the Australian Museum’s arachnology collection, said it was unusual, but not unheard of, for spiders to target vertebrates.

“This is the first time I’ve seen one catch a mouse, but I have seen huntsmen catch geckos. I’ve seen a redback spider catch a snake in its web, I’ve seen a golden orb spider catch birds.”

Milledge said the banded huntsman could grow to have a leg span as large as 16cm.

However his colleague, the Australian Museum arachnid expert Helen Smith, said it was unlikely that Hermie had killed the mouse itself.

“I would be very surprised if a huntsman would attack a mouse and even if it did, that the venom would be sufficient to kill it fast enough for the spider to still have hold of it,” she told the Guardian.

“I am also suspicious because the mouse’s tail looks quite stiff – as though it has been dead some time.”

While the exact cause of the mouse’s demise remained in question, there was no doubt over Hermie’s remarkable size and stamina, she said.

• This article was amended on 25 October 2016 to correct the spelling of Graham Milledge’s name.