Found this Spider at the weekend!

[nickg123]

By far the biggest I've found so far, is it just a house spider? I guess he must be a few years old to get to this size!

[cindychops]

Thats the baby!wait till you see its mum!

[danrc]

why did I click this thread!?!

[JohnBender]

danrc said:

why did I click this thread!?!

x2

[angry jock]

What a cracker!!! The largest ones I've had this year are about the size of the bottom of a pint glass! Well done for not squishing the "wee" fella!

[Killer2005]

That's huge for a native spider

[Long Drax]

Lovely spidey.

Haven't seen many big 'uns so far this Autumn.

[Google [bot]]

So big it distracted you from your suicide attempt

[GBTurbo]

fk that's pretty big for UK?

[zollburgers]

Destroy it please.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

I cleaned new Datsuns in the 80s. Pulled the polythene from the seat and some huge Japanese spider popped out. We stuck it in one of the lads' toolebox. He about expired!

[Jasandjules]

Looks like a cutie.

[lazy_b]

Looking at the size, it's probably a Giant House Spider, closely related to the common house spider

[Boshly]

Google [bot] said:

So big it distracted you from your suicide attempt

[205alive]

Ten spiders in the UK which can give a painful bite:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/insects-sp...

Yours could possibly be a 'Black Lace Weaver':

'The bite, on the palm of the hand, was very painful. There was a white patch on the bite area, and a fairly large area of reddening around it.'

'Swelling for 3 days, nausea.'

There's a description of a guy bitten by a different UK spider in the linked list of ten - his two year old labrador was bitten after him, went into shock immediately and suffered liver poisoning. If it was a toddler, could've been very serious.

Edited by 205alive on Tuesday 23 October 00:44

(Further edited to add, I'm very sure lazy_b knows much more than me about this)

Edited by 205alive on Tuesday 23 October 00:46

[dreamer75]

Whatever it is, we've had a few of those this year - with the same markings, and bloody huge !

Then yesterday I pulled my jeans on after leaving them on the floor overnight, and felt something prickling my leg. Like a pin sticking in it. After a few and it starting to itch I took my jeans off to find a baby one of the brown spiders in there (now squashed). Can only imagine it bit me a couple of times !

[rosie11]

My Cats love to chomp on those. just the odd leg or two left for me to clear up

[nickg123]

Google [bot] said:

So big it distracted you from your suicide attempt

Hahah good spot!! Pleased to say it was just having an MOT ;-)

Looking around it does indeed seem to be the Giant House Spider - I thought it must be something like that but I've just never seen one get to this size!! I heard they can live up to around 6 so I'm guessing this is a few years old at least.

[Trefy5]

Females are larger than male so probably a lass

Got a photo of a similar one found in a bucket at work at the weekend - same breed of House Spider
I can't touch them but they do fascinate me

[Shaolin]

It's a bath spider. Baths left alone spontaneously generate such spiders, I open the window and chuck them out, then they have to find their way back again.

It makes me surprisingly pleased to see a spider thread that doesn't have everyone squealing like a girl about something that weighs less than a gram.