Giant Spiders Terrorize British Households
Giant spiders terrorizing mild-mannered homeowners is a headline that every journalist, news reporter, and news aggregator dreams of one day writing. That day has come, but luckily there will be no need to bow in worship to the giant eight-legged monsters.
Among chitinous invertebrates, spiders are the most common of fears, and the more giant they are, the scarier they tend to get. The social network Twitter has been as overrun with British homeowners and residents posting pictures of giant spiders. Damian Barr began the trend on Saturday by authoring a tweet of a giant spider that he caught, which had huge, hideous legs and giant, frightening fangs, which was featured in a story on Mashable.
The influx of the giant spiders is largely due to the wetter then normal British summer season. BBC News spoke to a spider expert, Stuart Hine, who offered advice about the giant arachnids and information on how the UK’s spider issue was likely generated.
“This is mating season. The males when they are mature will leave their webs in search of a female spider, so off they go on their little trek to find love. In doing so they stop feeding so they actually don’t live that long as an adult and they’re just sort of roaming around.”
Quite romantic, if you think about it. It sort of makes the spiders seem like forlorn roommates. Only thing is that at the end of the day, they are still spiders, and once caught, they seem to get quite defensive and feisty, as evidenced by the video of a caught giant spider that Barr tweeted.
Despite being so intimidating, it is actually rather easy to get rid of the giant spiders. There is, of course, the classic spider trapping technique of placing a glass or a cup over the spider as it sits on a sheet of paper. Just make sure the glass is big enough to hold the giant house guest. The BBC News story offers other advice on how to get rid of them. You just have to be careful not to get your hands too close, according to Hine.
“They can give you a bit of a nip if you pick them up by the leg, saying ‘please let go of me’ in the politest way they know. They can even draw a bit of blood, but they don’t have venom that can have any effect on us.”
Spiders can be nice to have if you issues with insects in your house, but when they are mating, they tend to quit eating, according to Hine. Also, once the giant spiders do begin eating, it could be because they are lousy with baby spiders.
[Image by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images]
