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Saturday 11 February 2017

Australia's heatwave increases rate of spiders commuting on public transport

On Feb 10th, a huntsman spider took over several seats - reported to be about six in total - on a busy train in Melbourne, VIC.

This is actually pretty impressive, given that Melbourne is pretty much the stabbing and road rage capital of Australia, plus everything there is so expensive that everyone is generally in an angry mood.

There have been times where I have gone to catch a peak hour commute and there are people fighting over half a chair. Yet here, no one even shoos the spidler away?

I just can't get over how blatantly Australian this headline is!

Nervous commuters decided it was better to stand in the aisle rather than risk the wrath of the spider. 
One commuter, who wished to remain anonymous, bravely took a photo of the scene and sent it to The Age.
The spider is understood to be on the seat by the window in the above photo and therefore cannot be seen, but the photographer did not want to venture any closer. 
A Metro Trains spokesperson said spider sightings on Melbourne trains were a rare occurrence. 
However, they conceded they are called in to assist arachnophobic passengers more often than they used to be because people do not tend to have a newspaper handy during the morning commute these days. 
"Not many people are going to use a tablet or smartphone to shoo away a spider," the spokesperson said. 
The exact size and species of the spider has not been established. The photographer said the spider had crawled onto the floor by the time he took the shot and he did not want to take a photo under the seats. 
It is not yet known if the spider has disembarked from the train.
Premier Daniel Andrews has criticised the spider as being "that one passenger who puts their feet on the seat".
Concerned citizens asked if it was an example of man-spreading, if the spider tapped off it's travel card, if the arachnid minded sitting alone on it's commute, where the ticket inspectors were, if the spider used alternate methods of transport, or if it preferred the train and lastly... if this was actually a news story. 


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