There are spiders bigger than your hand lurking in the bush across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions.

Two researchers from Waikato University in conjunction with Canterbury Museum have collected thousands of spiders and analysed their DNA profiles to add to the book Spiders of New Zealand.

The research is the first of it's kind in New Zealand and tissue samples taken from the Spiders were sent to Canada for further analysis.

Researcher Nigel Binks says they didn't discover any new poisonous spiders but they did find some larger than tarantulas.

"We have a collection of spiders sort of related distantly to Tarantulas, which can live up to thirty years old. They become quite large. Bigger than your handspan."

"The main that we have found is this huge collection of species that we weren't aware existed beforehand."