This one had me shaking my hands & wrists like a little girl.
Normally I am not afraid of spiders. I rarely kill them unless I have to, preferring to transfer them outside and release. Unless they are are in danger of escaping and getting away (like under a couch or something). Living in North Carolina I am used to pretty much every bug being out for my blood, everything bites down here it seems. In Ohio an ant is just an ant, an annoyance to be sure, but not dangerous. Down here we have swarming, aggresive, evil fire ants. They wait until they are all on you and then bite at the same time. They leave nasty red bumps that seriously hurt. You accidentally knock over one of their gigantic mounds and they come boiling up as if from the bowels of hell itself, its like a horror movie! So, finding especially nasties in the garage, on the porch, or in the yard is no rare occurence...until last night. I take the dogs out before bed when I see this gigantic spider, easily the size of a fifty cent piece and I say "Holy Mary, mother of...Karl get out here." I show him the monster spider and he says wow, but if you think he's big check that one out.
My jaw hits the floor. I had NEVER seen a spider as big as this one outside of a zoo. It was gienormous, herculean, huge, humongous, and every other name in the thesaurus for BIG. This brought out the ancient arachnophobia that lies within our very gene structure. {{{shudder}}} Karl managed to capture it in a glass so I felt a morbid curoisity to check it out. Upon further inspection I noticed it had, in fact, hundreds of tiny baby spiders on its back. {{{shudder}}} Karl dumped it in the drainage ditch out front where it will no doubt be right at home with the other horror insects and creatures of this area. I googled it and found out it was a wolf spider. Its danger factor seemed to vary from site to site. Some said it was poisonous and would cause a bite similar to the brown recluse (with the dying tissue and everything). Others said the spider was worse than it looked and the only danger came from freaking out, turning and running into the door frame. Another said its bite could kill a full sized lab in hours, and yet another said it was no danger whatsoever. Such conflicting results. I mean it goes without saying I won't be playing with one anytime soon. Of course, this being the last thing I saw before going to bed, my dreams were filled with 8 legs running through my head. So here it is 4 something in the morning, I'm wide awake, and we have to leave for our mini vacation later today. Anyway, here are a couple pictures of the spider we saw last night. Its not from my camera, but it looks exactly like our "precious". (Some pictures have the babies on their back, and other pictures were given just to show you how giant it was).
My jaw hits the floor. I had NEVER seen a spider as big as this one outside of a zoo. It was gienormous, herculean, huge, humongous, and every other name in the thesaurus for BIG. This brought out the ancient arachnophobia that lies within our very gene structure. {{{shudder}}} Karl managed to capture it in a glass so I felt a morbid curoisity to check it out. Upon further inspection I noticed it had, in fact, hundreds of tiny baby spiders on its back. {{{shudder}}} Karl dumped it in the drainage ditch out front where it will no doubt be right at home with the other horror insects and creatures of this area. I googled it and found out it was a wolf spider. Its danger factor seemed to vary from site to site. Some said it was poisonous and would cause a bite similar to the brown recluse (with the dying tissue and everything). Others said the spider was worse than it looked and the only danger came from freaking out, turning and running into the door frame. Another said its bite could kill a full sized lab in hours, and yet another said it was no danger whatsoever. Such conflicting results. I mean it goes without saying I won't be playing with one anytime soon. Of course, this being the last thing I saw before going to bed, my dreams were filled with 8 legs running through my head. So here it is 4 something in the morning, I'm wide awake, and we have to leave for our mini vacation later today. Anyway, here are a couple pictures of the spider we saw last night. Its not from my camera, but it looks exactly like our "precious". (Some pictures have the babies on their back, and other pictures were given just to show you how giant it was).