Dear reader, before you buy ammo, hunker down, or apply for the 2022 flight to Mars, let's talk about how I found out that giant spiders exist within the real world:

On the early afternoon of Nov. 4, 2016, my eyes encountered that which appeared to be too strange to live within reality; my vision had fell upon a headline which surely had to be bait for a click. However, I was intrigued to see that the source was one not known for parody. As I clicked on that recent article from CBS News, I was surprised by the photos which greeted me.

As my eyes scrolled through the CBS News article from Jennifer Earl, knowledge became unveiled. The spider pictured twice above is known as a giant huntsman spider and this arachnid is the size of a dinner plate. Wait, a dinner plate? Yes, and that size includes its leg span. I mean, that is rather large for a spider but certainly not a catastrophic size. My eyes traveled back to the photos which went viral within the past few days.

As I lingered on the these photos, I realized that my previous glance allowed the framing of this spider to exaggerate the magnitude of this creature within my mind's eye.

There are other spiders like her. According to Jessie Szala, contributor of Live Science, notes that the leg span of these species of spider, the largest out of any, does not exceed 12 inches in diameter. If you're still worried, she's pointed out that encounters with these spiders have been rare. Another plus? According to the Australian Reptile Park, slight nausea and headaches are the worst symptoms which we'll experience on the exceptionally rare chance that any of us gets bitten by one of these forms of life.