Let’s take this spider as an example how bananas we are when our fears meet a lack of knowledge.
Every now and then we find it in the news, a banana spider caused trouble. Usually in a supermarket in a box of bananas or other fruits. I guess even when it comes with pineapple it is still called a banana spider. The name banana spider is itself a problem because it can possibly be any of the 50.000 species. Since there are some harmful spiders it makes sense that we have some respect. It can be questioned whether it makes sense to evacuate and fog a supermarket when a totally harmless spider was brought in. Usually, we would think of a huge, pale-brown spider as a banana spider.
The more harmful spiders would be from the genus Phoneutria. These are often called Brazilian Wandering spiders. Here is a great document about the topic. The World Spider Catalogue lists 9 species. Except for P. boliviensis all are found in South America only. Some of the 9 species can be dangerous for certain people when bitten, and so a banana spider can potentially be a venomous Phoneutria.
Our spider is from Nicaragua (close to a beautiful eco-lodge). Cupiennius has 11 species listed. Unfortunately, they look similar to Phoneutria. Cupiennius mainly occur in Central America. The common understanding is that these spiders are not harmful to humans. Some sources say the common name is Banana spiders.
The third possible banana spider would be Heteropoda, belonging to the family of huntsman spiders. This is a large genus with 189 species, and I just discovered that one is called H. zuviele, which is German and means “to many”. This species is described by Peter Jäger, another not-so-common name (find more here) given by him. The entire body looks different from the former two genera, but for non-bug people, this might not be obvious. There are some reports about painful bites, and imagine so many different species will carry many different toxins. But in general, people say these are also not harmful. So we have panic around banana spiders because of 2 possible harmful Phoneutria species, while there is a good chance that it is one of the lesser venomous spiders, especially when the shipment is not from South America.
From a taxonomic point of view, Heteropoda, Phoneutria, and Cupiennius are as closely related to each other as eagles, hawks, and old-world vultures are. They belong to three different families! This classification happens based on taxonomic relevant differences in body parts. So we should be able to tell them apart.
One key is the position of the eyes. Most spiders have eight, so there are many possible ways to arrange them. When you look a spider in the eyes, you can tell quite certain to which family it belongs. Eye patterns can be found here! So we should be able to tell the three possible banana genera apart by looking at the eyes. That enables you to identify Sprassidae (Huntsmen, where our Lichen Huntsman belongs) by the 4 similar-sized eyes in a row. Phoneutria´s (family Ctenidae, Wandering spiders) and Cupiennius´s (family Trechaleidae, Banana spiders) eye patterns are very similar. There are 4 eyes building a square. To me, it seems those 4 eyes are similar in size for Phoneutria, and for Cupiennius the lower two are a bit smaller. Please don´t rely on that, I haven´t found sources proving that! The better separation would be to look at the pedipalps, where only Phoneutria has dense hair (setae).
Anyway, it is always a good idea to be careful with spiders, keep your distance and take only pictures! Spiders of all three families are very agile and will most likely flee from you! They are just wandering. When you deal with shipments from Central and South America, get yourself familiar with the most common banana spiders! It is not too hard.
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