Australia's huntsman spiders are fast, but a new study says they might be among the swiftest in the world. The study, a preprint published on bioRxiv, analyzed the speeds of 258 species of spiders, including Australia's brown huntsman. The huntsman's medium size and long legs give it an edge in running speed, moving at 3.59 meters per second. Biomechanics researcher Christofer Clemente from the University of the Sunshine Coast says the study answers an interesting question about how animals like spiders move. He notes that the fastest animals aren't always the smallest or largest, but something intermediately sized. The study used a grid-based pursuit method, placing spiders in a box with grid paper and recording their speeds with high-speed cameras. The huntsman, with a mass of about 1 milligram, outperformed spiders with smaller masses and much bigger ones. Dr. Clemente's earlier research, published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A, also looked at spider speed and movement, finding the huntsman's speeds impressive. He suggests that other spider species might be even faster, and more research is needed to determine the exact species of the speedy huntsman. The study raises questions about the evolution of locomotion and why animals move the way they do.
