This one's for temeres

[kerravonsen]

This morning, I trundled into my shower as usual... and it wasn't until I'd already almost finished that I noticed I had a visitor, because, well, it was kind of hidden by the towel hanging over the side of the shower cubicle.

It was a ruddy great SPIDER!
The most ENORMOUS Daddy Long Legs spider I have ever seen in my LIFE!

And I was standing there starkers. Fortunately, I'm not like my mother, who probably would have jumped, screamed, and shrieked "Kill it! Kill it!" Instead I carefully exited the shower, got another towel, dried myself, wrapped the towel around myself, and - thinking of temeres - grabbed my camera, entered the shower stall again, and took photos.

This was the most nervewracking photo to take, because I put my fingers near it, because I wanted to give people some sense of scale, that, yes, it is THAT BIG!

This one was taken at an angle, but I think it shows the details very well.

I checked just now, and it's still there. I hope it's gone in the morning, please. I really don't fancy sharing another shower with it.

(ETA: edited to fix link to second picture)

So, temeres, what do you think?

Comments

[watervole]

Definitely a big spider. I wonder what they use those long, thin legs for.

[innerslytherin]

*shudders* I would have been shrieking KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT! And been entirely unable to kill it myself. That's how terrified I am of the nasty little buggers. In my head I know they are beneficial and such, but if they are in my house, they are dead meat.

Also, interesting that those are Daddy Long Legs in your part of the world. Ours have a rounder body and even skinnier legs. And are never that huge.

*shudders more*

[kerravonsen]

Well, ours are normally not that huge either. It's only my guess that it was a Daddy Long Legs, it could have been a mutant alien spider for all I know.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Cuuuuuute!

[kerravonsen]

That isn't quite the word I would use... 8-/

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

I'd have turned the shower on it and given it a swimming lesson...

[kerravonsen]

It was in a corner and fairly high up; the shower wouldn't have reached it.

[dreamflower]

Do you suppose it's a descendant of Shelob or Aragog?

(My husband has an interesting idea that Aragog could be Shelob's ex-- when he learned what the fate of her husbands usually was, he decamped from Arda to the HP universe along with the kids...)

[kerravonsen]

Or perhaps a giant mutant spider, which, if it bit someone, would turn them into Spiderman?

My husband has an interesting idea that Aragog could be Shelob's ex-- when he learned what the fate of her husbands usually was, he decamped from Arda to the HP universe along with the kids...

(smirk) Fun idea! Though not quite fitting with canon.

[dreamflower]

No, not quite. But then my husband is always trying to "help" me with my fanfic with some very crack-y plot bunnies. *sigh* He's quite persistent in asking for a "Bill the pony falls in love with a donkey" romance...

[temeres.livejournal.com]

I think you should be commended both for your courage and your sense of restraint. I also think I'd have been more than a little nervous in the same circumstances. So kudos to you.

[kerravonsen]

Thanks.

I checked just now, and I thought it had gone, and then I realized it had just moved three feet downwards in the shower. So I used the same trap-and-release method that I use on Huntsman spiders: margarine container, thwap, over the top, then slide a piece of cardboard between container and surface, then take outside, lift off cardboard and stand well back. I admit, if it had been a more normal-sized spider I probably would have just killed it, but it was such an unusual specimen I didn't want to deprive the world of its existence. Though of course, nature "red in tooth and claw" will probably do that deed anyway. But not just yet.

[temeres.livejournal.com]

So the spider lives and you get to shower. I call that a win-win scenario. Well done!

[kerravonsen]

8-)

[temeres.livejournal.com]

I think it might be a species of Nephila, but that is a provisional identification at best. If so then the bite is potentially nasty, though very unlikely to be dangerous, so I suggest you refrain from handling it.

Not that I think you need much urging. I certainly wouldn't.

[kerravonsen]

You don't think that it's a Pholcidae?

[temeres.livejournal.com]

Yes, it could be a pholcid, though I don't know if they grow that big. I'm only familiar with the single British species, the Cellar Spider Pholcus phalangioides, but this is a big family with many species across the world, and there may well be some much larger tropical varieties.

[kerravonsen]

Though Melbourne isn't tropical... but one wouldn't really expect an orb-weaver to be hanging about in a shower...

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Look on the bright side. At least it wasn't a crocodile.

[kerravonsen]

(snort)
Indeed. Another reason I'm glad I don't live in the Northern Territory.

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

LOL It's only a daddy long legs... at least it wasn't a huntsman (or depending on what part of the country you're in a funnelweb).

[kerravonsen]

I think I'd have been less nervous if it had been a huntsman, because at least they're normally that size. And I think huntsman spiders are rather pretty.

If it had been a funnelweb, I think I really would have shrieked. Fortunately, I don't live in Sydney. And even when I lived in Sydney, I never encountered one in the garden (their normal habitat) let alone inside.

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

I'm on acreage, and often get really big daddy longlegs in the house (in fact I've pretty much given up on trying to convince them to move along), so they don't bother me... but huntsmen jump... I really hate that! *shudders*

Living in Qld, I have never encountered a funnelweb and never want to...their photo is scary enough!

[kerravonsen]

The thing I hated about spiders when I lived in Queensland was the ones who would build these enormous webs between trees, and one would walk smack into them and get the spiderweb in one's face and hair.

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

Yeah... But I'm really short, so I usually end up walking under those and the tall people get them. For me it's definitely the huntsman spiders... as I say, they jump... that puts them up there in the scary/creepy basket with flying cockroaches. *shudders*

Anyway, I better go get on with the day before it gets too hot to do anything constructive. Have a lovely day!

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Just as well you weren't my husband, the shower might not have survived! :¬D

Being non-arachnaphobe I do all the spider trapping here. That is a big beastie.