For some reason it made headlines: recently a woman rescued a huge huntsman spider and set it free. It’s not certain what people find so newsworthy about it, but the woman apparently had some empathy. It’s a good thing this is newsworthy, too many negative things make headlines.

Did you know that somewhere around 40,000 known species of spiders exist, but only a few of them are considered dangerous?

Thousands of various spider species exist in the United States, and only black widows and brown recluse spiders can harm humans for the most part. That certainly isn’t the case in some places a person can live, but I guess America is lucky.

In the Barnyard Betty’s Rescue video, the spider affectionately named “Charlotte” looks just like the type of creature that can literally flex its muscles while slamming energy drinks.

On the social media post, Betty said:

“Beautiful Charlotte the spider, one of my best rescues yet  To answer some of your questions: She is a Huntsman Spider and we are located in Queensland Australia and yes she is very real and very large and not photo shopped!! I released her here on the farm after rescuing her so I can’t get anymore photos or video her I’m sorry. She was going to be killed by humans. She was a beautiful, calm spider, not aggressive in any way and like most spiders she just wanted to go about her business eating bugs and living in peace. She didn’t or doesn’t need to be killed! Poor spiders are so misunderstood!

All creatures great and small are welcome here at Barnyard Betty’s Rescue a safe haven no matter how you look!! [sic].”

So why is a Huntsman spider given this name? Well obviously they are fast and they hunt a certain way. They have also been referred to as giant crab spiders, for a self explanatory reason.

Sometimes the massive 8 legged creatures are referred to as wood spiders, because they like to dwell in mine shafts, forests, piles of woods, things like that. They can be found in southern Africa, known as rain spiders, or even lizard-eating spiders, to invoke a fairly terrifying image.

All kinds of species of Huntsman spider, in fact over a thousand, exist in tropical and warm temperate regions all over the planet, including Australasia, Asia, Africa, the Americas, an the Mediterranean Basin.

Spiders seem to be innately scary to human beings, even to the point where hallucinating spiders upon waking up is a common experience people report. Look it up, people seeing spiders that slowly fade out of their vision upon waking out of a deep night of sleep, that’s something people report all the time.