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

[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. >__> <__< )