Ah! I Was Attacked by a Giant Ugly Spider

Posted on May 26th, 2010 in House, Wildlife

I know we all love big ugly spiders! I was sitting on the floor in the laundry room painting a stand for my new Evader ducted fan model jet. I stood up and turned to walk down the hallway. I just happened to looked down and realized that I had been getting spied on! (spidered on?) by a good sized man eating spider! OK, it wasn’t the size of a man eater and it didn’t really attack me in a physical sense, just caused a little mental *piff* noise as some brain cells were startled. The big spider didn’t move all that much and just sort of shifted one way a little bit. I stepped the other way, quickly, and went into a kitchen and grabbed a plastic Glad container, then came back and put the relatively thick container over the spider. I say relatively thick because as far as I know, and I’m probably wrong, a spider this size has diamond tough sharp fangs which can penetrate even hardened steel. I didn’t really want to let the giant spider bite me so I was very cautious.

When I covered up the spider it didn’t freak out or panic, it just sort of moved towards the clear plastic wall and poked at it a bit with it’s legs as if it were checking it out, and just settled in as I went off to find a piece of thin plywood to slide under the plastic container and create the perfect spider cage / spider transportation device. I slid the plywood under the container and Mr. Cool Spider. He just crawled up onto the plywood and sat there presumably not to worried about anything going on. I then picked up the container and stepped outside with it. When the spider saw the great outdoors he seemed a bit more interested and moved towards the wall of the container and placed a couple of those long legs on the side of the container, looking out and about.

I let my creepy new spider ~~friend~~ acquaintance out by the wood pile, that’s usually where I find big spiders so I thought it might like the cover and bugs provided there as long as some bigger spider didn’t come along and eat him. The spider didn’t move all the much when I put him into the lawn, I think he was in shock, or didn’t want to draw attention to himself or something. I don’t ‘get’ arachnids in general.

About a week later another giant man eating spider found it’s way into the house. This time Bryn whacked it twice with the broom and picked it up with a piece of TP. The thing was just stunned and not dead! It started to squirm and wiggle and right itself right on top of the toilet paper! Bryn quickly dumped it in the toilet and the spider climbed to the top of the TP and looked like it was about to spider jump out of the bowl so I slammed the lid and flushed it down. Then I flushed again and ran the tub a bit, I don’t think it’ll be coming back that way. I doubt many spiders are actually reading this but the trick to spider survival is to STAY OUT OF SIGHT lest you be destroyed.

I wish my Scutigera Coleoptrata would eat these things when they were little so I didn’t have to deal with them. I suspect these are the spiders that leave the creepy looking empty Scutigera shells in the crawlspacement in the spider webs with thick webbing.

I always love to share the horrors of nature with friends and family and the random passer by unfortunate enough to find the spider pages of this site. I hope you’ve enjoyed the spider pictures. The spider looks pretty cool in this photograph it’s dark body and those big striped spider legs transposed over the leafy and flowery ground cover.

For the record, this isn’t close to the largest spider I’ve seen around here. I think the last home owner must have collected large spiders as a hobby and decided to move after accidentally letting his collection loose on the property! That’s my guess anyways, it could just be that the property is really old and there’s many generations and breeds of spiders here.

This guy also has a great spider story to read if you’re into that kind of stuff!