The huntsman despite being labelled harmless will bite if the situation arises though as far as I have heard, can be at time somewhat worse than a bee sting. I've found the younger half sized huntsman to be the hardest to track for their quick speed. However the fastest spider, perhaps only capable of this speed for a short duration for me is still one instance of the local species of bird eating spider - funnel web moving a bit over half a meter, 2 foot in the blink of the eye. I though have really begun to think there might be more than one sub species of it about. Most of the time these local funnel web spiders move on the slow side, seem docile -- thus some very brave people think they're almost harmless to handle and the like.
