I need an ID on a FUCKING HUGE SPIDER.

[seiberwing]

WARNING: Links below contain graphic pictures of arachnids. Please do not click if you have a problem with this.

Now, I grew up here in East Tennessee. I'm used to spiders. I love spiders. I have a near-religious obligation to never harm spiders, which is the reason that this one made it out of the house alive. But the good lord created spiders to only grow to a certain size in this area and the monstrosity I just threw out the back door could only be an agent of chaos.

Picture is actually pretty close to life-size, perhaps a hair bigger.

The little servant of Llolth was quite easily larger than my palm without bothering to stretch its legs, and it didn't seem to care about being seen. So I did a bit of a tiny shriek, and then ran to show my mum so she could also indulge in the womanly shrieking. Since I couldn't actually use a glass because it was too damn big, I put a tupperware container over it and attempted to take deep calming breaths.

Here it is with a small paint brush for scale.

And here it is with my mum's hand holding the tupperware down while it flailed at the sides.

Still no clue what it was, though. It's outside now, but if it comes back I'd like to know what name to use in the banishing ritual. Best guess is a wolf spider--I don't think they're supposed to be that size, but it could be some kind of freakish mutant. Spiders are spinners of webs and killers of pests and bearers of wisdom and all that, but only Ananse gets to be big enough to sit at the dinner table.

Comments

[psychokitty013.livejournal.com]

*screeches and hides in terror*

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

My dad was an entomologist; I think you might want to Google the name of your geographical area, the word spider and arachnid.

Non-poisonous, I venture.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'll do that once I get in to work. I figured non-poisonous, the biggest ones around here usually are.

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

I mean the specific name where you live, i.e., Southeastern US, Tennessee, Blue Ridge Mountain chain, etc. Arachnids and insects tend to be specific to a geographical area.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Eastern, right up between Knoxville and Oak Ridge.

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's a wolf spider:

http://www.blognetnews.com/Tennessee/feed.php?channel=22&y=2008&m=05&d=01

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

It looks a bit bright, but then again that might be the flash from the camera and this one wasn't exactly normal anyway. We get wolf and water spiders indoors all the time, on account of living next to a lake.

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

I think the markings match; the one you found seems to be young (or male).

Someone gave me a Mexican Red tarantula as a gift (!) during my punk/goth stage. I really got into it; my dad hated it.

"I deal with the damn things all day, I don't want to look at one when I come home!"

This is why I am the family weirdo. :P

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

...young? Something that damn big was young?

What, is it related to Cloverfield?

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

Heh, yes, they grow. The Wolf spider is a big one, although it's not as large as a tarantula, I think. Males tend to be smaller than females.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

http://www.fazed.org/blog/view/1/clock-spider/

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'm quite aware of Clock Spider, thank you.

[oasis-pink-peng.livejournal.com]

Holy CRAP I'm glad I live in a cold area where spiders are small!

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

It really looks too skinny and the legs are too long to be a wolf spider. Contact Susan Reichert at UT -- she's The Spider Lady (granted, she's more on Spider Behavior than Spider Taxonomy, but she knows her stuff). There's also an invertebrates group that you might ask.

Lemme know what you find out! (and tell her I sent you....)

[lunatron.livejournal.com]

...that is a huge spider. Good for you for not killing it!

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I just can't kill spiders. I thought about throwing a boot at this one, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I usually just catch them under a glass, but I think it wouldn't have fit and I'd have just broken some of its legs.

[corvid.livejournal.com]

I believe wolf spiders (rabid wolf spiders are supposed to be pretty big,) tend to have stripes down the side. The first picture looks like there may be some furry texture, which I think fits a fishing spider better. That's a sheer guess from trolling through "What was that Bug?"

http://spiders.entomology.wisc.edu/Pisauridae/index.html (no pictures on this page. Huge pictures if you click the links.)

How do these two look for being close?

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

The bottom one's too light and the patterns are wrong on the top one. Wolf spider's the consensus, but I'm going to ask on invertebrates anyway.

We've got tons of fishing spiders down at the lake, but I haven't seen any of this side.

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

HOLY SHIT.

That's a pretty big spider to encounter in "the wild".

You could try asking at What's that bug? (http://www.whatsthatbug.com/).

[tarajcl.livejournal.com]

It looks hungry.

FOR FLESH.

(Glad you didn't kill it though.)

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

It's the sort of thing that sits on your face at night and stares at you with unblinking eyes.

[tarajcl.livejournal.com]

It is the Tiger-Force at the core of all things. When you cry out in your dreams, it is Unbelievably Huge Spider that you see.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

It is the terror that skitters in the night.

[tarajcl.livejournal.com]

It is Batspider. And it can breathe in space.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

This...is....A REALLY FREAKING BIG SPIDER!

[craftknightzero.livejournal.com]

HOLY BALLS, that's a big spider. The biggest spiders I see around here are about the size of a quarter, bigger if the spread their legs. I always thought those were wolf spiders.

Props for going the pacifist route. I've always been fasinated by spiders but uneasy when I read what some of them can do to people.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

We get plenty bigger spiders here, mostly because of the lake. I don't know why they want to bother wandering up to the house, though.

[phrogge.livejournal.com]

Just to bug you {chuckle}

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Sometimes they come into my shower and stare at me. Perhaps I should be worried.

[cindy-73.livejournal.com]

Up here where I live the daddy long-legs get huge if they're in the right environment. I remember when I was on summer break and I was staying with my grandparents and I was sleeping on the couch and I woke up with a huge daddy long-legs on my nose waving its left leg at me. I jump right off the couch and screamed bloody murder because I wasn't prepared to wake up to see a damn spider on my nose waving at me first thing in the morning. So yeah, I would freak too if I saw a spider that big than what I was use to seeing. But I also have a soft spot for spiders. If I ever get lucky enough to have an albino tarantula, I will name it Powderpuff! XD

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Ack! Anything crawly sitting on your nose is gonna be terrifying, although objectively it's kind of cute.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

Hullo, just randomly cruising by your journal in search of TF-related stuff and spotted this - you may have IDed it by now but that looks like a Huntsman Spider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider) to me. It's got the wider front legs and the right colours, and they can get hand-sized easily. I ran into one in Japan and they are found in some parts of the US. They're nocturnal, pretty shy, and not aggressive (you have to corner one and poke it a lot to get it to bite, not that I have tried this out). They also eat cockroaches, so if you can cope with having something that big around the house they're quite helpful. Personally, though I like spiders in general, I didn't feel like being made to jump every time I spotted it (they move very fast), so I guided mine out of the window.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Most of the people I talked to voted for a larger-than-normal wolf spider, but it could be them. Where do they tend to live in the US?

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

I don't know, not being in the US, but there's a map on wiki with the distribution, and I'm pretty sure every time I've run into mention of them in the US online (for some reason the things come up with some regularity in metaquotes and fandom_wank, of all places) the posters have tended to be in your neck of the woods. It doesn't look like a wolf spider to me because they have somewhat brighter colours, however the Huntsman is related to the wolf spider, I think... but I am not an expert by any means, just think they're neat and read up on them when I was in Japan. :) I live in the UK, where bugs of all sorts rarely get bigger than an inch, so finding one of those on the wall in Japan was an experience...

(I will admit that my biologist housemate and I screamed like little girls when we tried to catch it in an ice-cream tub and it shot off like lightning. >__> <__< )