Brown Huntsman Spider Reaches Peak Speed of 3.59 Meters per Second

The brown huntsman spider reached a peak speed of 3.59 meters per second, the highest recorded among more than 250 species analyzed by scientists in the UK and Germany, The Guardian reported. Researchers collected 162 spider species, primarily from London and Greifswald, Germany, with additional specimens from North America, southern Europe, and Australia.

They measured running speeds with cameras and gridded paper as the track.

The study, submitted to a scientific journal, also incorporated earlier data including work supervised by Dr. Christofer Clemente. Clemente, an evolutionary biomechanist at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, gathered spiders from his backyard using a head torch for his 2021 research on locomotion.

Spiders extend their limbs through a combination of muscle retraction and hydraulic pressure, he said. The brown huntsman, which lives along Australia’s east coast and is common in homes in south-east Queensland, measures about the size of a hand. It is venomous but rarely bites humans, and effects are mild when bites occur.

Its average sustained speed reached approximately 2 meters per second. Dr. Jonas Wolff of the University of Greifswald, one of the lead authors, described the work as the broadest comparative study of running speed in spiders conducted to date.

The data showed that the largest species did not run the fastest and that web-building spiders were not necessarily slower than active hunters. The Moroccan flic-flac spider recorded 1.7 meters per second. Wolff said the results point to a body-mass threshold beyond which running speed declines due to mechanical limits in muscle physiology and body plan.