huge spiders

[peanut]

this morning Mrs P came home from house-sitting a friends home. She had spent a night of absolute terror in her friends house and hadn't had a wink of all night.

Sitting watching tv last night she saw a huge spider run across the sofa on which she was sitting.

Working on farms and in liver yards, stables etc she is used to seeing some pretty big spiders but this one was the size of a cats food bowl. approx 4.5" across maybe 6"+ fully stretched out.

Grabbing the nearest blunt instument she whacked it with all her might but the sofa absorbed the strike and the spider shot off lickedy- spit.

Unable to find the spider even after up-ending the room she spent a very lonely sleepless night with her eyes wide open.

 

[Panter]

Was it a huge spider and it's size exagerated by it's shadow cast from the flickering TV though?

That's a hell of a size for the UK

 

[Wigsie]

A 6" spider in Somerset?

Do her friends keep tarantula's? if not... does your wife do drugs?

Or is 6 inches ACTUALLY 3 in you house? is that why your names peanut? come on fess up!

 

[wafflycat]

normal house spider most likely, as the weather conditions this year have allowed them to grow bigger than usual.

 

[Wigsie]

normal house spider most likely, as the weather conditions this year have allowed them to grow bigger than usual.

The weather conditions? no offence but are you serious waffles?

Weather conditions may allow them to grow slightly more than the usual 1 - 1.5 inch common house spiders or raft spiders get to. But weather does not allow a spider to grow over 400% its own size and bigger than most other spiders in the world.

 

[wafflycat]

Such large spiders are not unheard of in UK.

Edit: indeed I've regularly seen ones 3" across.

 

[rich p]

6+" and can withstand a direct hit from a blunt instrument, albeit on a sofa?


Is she sure? I think I'll have to side with Wiggsie on this one and assume your missus had been a touch heavy on the gin

 

[wafflycat]

And here you go

http://www.wildlifeuk.net/spider-identification-t-220.html

 

[Lisa21]

OMG, I think she is brave just staying in the house after that...id have been in the garden all night!

Last night I was lying in bed and had the fire onwhich sort of cast shadows round the room. My bed is a huge 4-poster(love it!!!) and something on the ceiling caught my eye.......

A spider was walking along the wooden beam above me and although the beam is prob a couple of inches wide as its a chunky carved one, the blimmin thing was magnified by the shadows so much that the waving leg that had origionaly caught my eye was about 16 inches long

I cannot tell you the warp-speed I left that bed and the bedroom and indeed upstairs!!!!!!!
On further investigation with all lights on and a shoe in hand, it was tiny enough for even me to dispose of
Took me ages to get back to sleep tho

 

[Wigsie]

And here you go

http://www.wildlifeuk.net/spider-identification-t-220.html

A picture of a spider on a white wall with no reference points, can be 100 inches or even a half inch?

That is a common house spider and I will admit I have seen some big ones, much bigger than an inch across, but there is a massive difference between that and a 4.5 - 6 inch spider.

Most types of Tarantula's have a 3-5 inch leg span if it was not a tarantula then it was a massive exageration from either the OP or his wife. Sorry.

 

[wafflycat]

Whilst the photographer didn't place a ruler next to it, the text does say, size of a man's palm. I have no reason to disbelieve that as I've certainly seen them that size in my neck of the woods. So that, combined with perhaps a bit of exaggeration on the OP's wife's part and the most likley culprit is an ordinary house spider - on the big side of the size they can be found at.

 

[Garz]

I see plenty doing my job, and in fact have two that I leave in the living room one I named 'Bob' I see him that much. I'l take a picture of one of them if I get a chance, hopefully bob as he's bigger!

 

[soulful dog]

As wafflycat said, apparently they are growing a lot bigger than usual this year, I just didn't realise how big.

I'm not normally scared of spiders, but one night last week I was just about to turn the light off and go to sleep when I happened to glance up at the wall directly across from my bed.......

Needless to say I shot out my bed rather quickly.

With no help on hand to deal with the intruder (everyone else was fast asleep), I had to tackle it myself (it was either that or spend the night on the couch) so I armed myself with some paper, a pint glass and a pair of stepladders and set about trying to catch it.

*Obviously I grabbed my camera first because I knew no one would believe me when I described this "10-inch monster" the following morning - well it looked that big when I first spotted it!

As soon as I climbed the ladder I realised there was a slight problem as the pint glass was a fair bit smaller than the spider, but I am thoroughly delighted to disappoint you all by reporting there was no mad spider chase, instead I just sort of half covered it and shoved the paper underneath and fortunately it curled up and fell into the glass. God only knows what I would have done if it had made a run for it..... screamed for definite!

Anyway, I ran downstairs and threw it out the front door, just managing not to throw the glass away with it. I then crawled back into my bed but it took me ages to get to sleep afterwards.

Probably the spider was only about 4 inches (I'm not sure how wide a pint glass is, the one I caught it in broke in the dishwasher the following day), but it still gives me the creeps now.

 

[earth]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17697-girls-are-primed-to-fear-spiders.html

 

[Garz]

Made from girders!