"Oh my god!!! What the hell is this???"

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Ed

Ed

Ed

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...shouted my girlfriend. I dashed across the room to the hall where she was crouched and she had captured a spider in a wine glass. Initial thoughts were, "damn that's huge". It also started to rear up when I touched the glass so it could clearly see my fingers and was very aggressive.

It had a look neither of us were confident about so we executed it just in case. Upon further inspection and a little Googling it turns out it was a [SIZE=-1]Tegenaria duellica, commonly known as a Giant House Spider.

A few facts:
[/SIZE]
  • Females can reach 18 mm in length, with males having a slightly smaller body at around 12 mm to 15 mm in length. The female leg span is typically around 45 mm. The leg span of the male is highly variable, with spans between 25 mm to 75 mm being common.
  • Up until 1987, the Giant house spider held the record as the fastest spider in the world. The record has since been awarded to a species of African Sun Spiders, which aren't actually spiders at all.
  • An established population of Giant house spiders is generally considered to be a deterrent to the establishment of a Hobo spider population. Giant house spiders compete with Hobo spiders for the same resources. Male Giant house spiders will often kill Hobo spiders and won't hesitate to make a meal of one. Hobo spiders grow no more than 1 1/2 inches long as where the giant house spider can grow to the length of 4 inches.
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Now I know what it is I feel a bit guilty about its demise.
 
I just found a massive spider in the bathroom and caught him in a plastic tub. Thankfully the little fella looked nothing like this one. Have let him out in the garden area.

But that looks like a nasty little sod that one.
 
Ed said:
  • Up until 1987, the Giant house spider held the record as the fastest spider in the world. The record has since been awarded to a species of African Sun Spiders, which aren't actually spiders at all.
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Around these parts we typically refer to African Sun Spiders as Camel Spiders.
 
I generally let spiders run over my hands, even big garden ones but this I hadn't seen before and just acted very defensively, not something I wanted to touch just in case.
 
dafloppyone said:
we get 100s of those buggers every week atm, damn fields. never used to but they seem to be getting bigger every year, and more explorative!
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Where there's been a boom in the numbers of mosquitos and crane flies all the common spiders are getting fat. I'm surprised some of them can still walk.
 
Yep, getting them here in on the banks of the Clyde too. Bloody big buggers are frightening the missus but mini-me is having a whale of a time chasing them around various rooms and always lets out an 'Oooooooo' when ever he spies one. This alerts the missus to their presence and allows me to intervene before he sqaushes them and stains the carpet.
 
Ed said:
[*]Up until 1987, the Giant house spider held the record as the fastest spider in the world. The record has since been awarded to a species of African Sun Spiders, which aren't actually spiders at all.
Click to expand...

Doesn't really hold the record as fastest spider in the world then does it :rolleyes:
 
We get a lot of those big ones at work. I found two within inches of each other on my office wall this time last year, scared the hell out of me. I had to use a bin to get rid of them.
 
I saw a MASSIVE Dragonfly the other day. When I say massive, I don't mean 3-4 inches. I could see it about 20 meters away, and when it came towards me :eek: it looked like it was about 18" in size. :eek:

I had to run away from it...as you do. ;):o
 
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