So last night my wife comes in from “last call” with the dog and says that there’s a huge spider outside.
She was right. Effer was HUGE.
Click to embiggen. If you dare.
That’s a 12″ square paver, for scale.
I got brave and went close enough to take this one:
Click to embiggen
That abdomen is about the size of an acorn. When I got in close, I saw several tiny spiders crawling under the big one (baby spiders hitching a ride on momma?). I blew on it, trying to see if it was dead.
It jumped, and so did I. I stepped on it and then came inside to change pants. Not sure my Glock would have been effective on that beast.
So, what kind of spider was that? Should I be concerned about all the little ones? My son in just about to start crawling….
Do a google image search for “wolf spider with young” to see more of the same.
Yup… Wolf Spider. Not poisonous by human standards, but are definitely creeeeeeeepy! Killing it with fire is the only way to be sure. Lysol and a match work pretty good. Just remember… short controlled bursts. Just like a full auto ;).
well before I saw the other two comments i was going to say it looks like one of our wolf spiders. So obviously your wolf spider and ours is very similar.
harmless – leave the poor thing alone next time!
Yep… Wolf spider carrying it’s young. Fortunately, I think we only have two spiders in the area that are dangerous to humans. Of course, those two are the brown recluse and black widow, so…
As for killing it with fire… yeah… I’m with you. Any creepy crawly that starts to encroach my living space that carries a boat load of miniature versions of itself shal die.
Last fall daughter opened her back door to let the dog out and one bigger than that walked in. Stuck a bowl over it, got some pictures and took it back outside(they eat bugs and she likes that). When you look at the pictures in full-size, her back was COVERED with tiny babies that hadn’t gone out on their own yet.
And no, far as I know don’t need to worry about the kid. Other than “Now very gently put it DOWN, dammit!”
That explains why it “glistened” when we hit it with the flashlight. Thousands of tiny eyes looking back at me. Ewwwwww!
DON’T step on it! I made the mistake stomping on it while wearing my TAC boots inside the garage. I freaked when I saw the juveniles scatter in all directions from their smashed mother. So I resorted to a full-on assault by fumigating the garage. I agree with “disavowed”. Flammable aerosol or toxic chems are the way to go (as long as there are no combustable items close by).