A member of the huntsman family, the brown huntsman Heteropoda jugulans, has clocked as the quickest speed of more than 250 spider species analysed by a team of scientists in the UK and Germany.
Reaching a peak of 3.59 metres per second (13km/h or 8mph), the humble and hairy-legged huntsman appears to be faster than the current world record-holder, the Moroccan flic-flac spider and its comparatively pedestrian 1.7 m/s (they don’t so much run, as tumble down hill to reach that speed).
But how does it compare to other species?
Notes: Speed over 100m is based on the animal’s top speed and does not take into account acceleration or the ability to maintain the speed over the given distance. Rat and horse speeds are from Clemente et al 2024. Huntsman spider speed is from Boehm et al 2021. The speed of a human non-athlete over 100m is based on the average of speeds from multiple sources. Jogging speed based on average speeds from Strava
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