The guest who eats the cockroaches
Late one December night in the Dominican Republic, something large and flat was sitting on the wall of the house, just above the door. At first I took it for a shadow. Then the shadow moved, sidestepping with an unnerving speed, legs spanning wide and body pressed low. It was a huntsman spider, and to the local cockroaches it was the worst news of the evening.
This is Heteropoda venatoria, the pantropical huntsman spider, a member of the family Sparassidae in the order Araneae. As its name suggests, it is found across the world’s tropics, a frequent and usually welcome house guest in warm regions, where it patrols walls and ceilings at night in search of cockroaches and other insects. It builds no web; it simply runs its prey down, relying on speed and long, splayed legs that let it cover ground in quick, sideways bursts.
The flattened body is a key part of the design. It allows the spider to slip into crevices, under furniture, and behind picture frames, and to press itself into a shape that is almost impossible to grab. Females carry their white egg sacs beneath them and guard the young after they hatch, a level of care that surprises people who think of spiders as solitary.
The species name venatoria means “huntress,” from the Latin venator, hunter. It is a rare spider that earns its name through actual, visible hunting, and watching one stalk a cockroach across a wall is worth staying up for.
