Eeeek! Truly quaking I am! An enormous spider ran across the floor! More than 5″ (13cm) across (including legs) and quite fat!
It did not look as if coming to sit beside me (I’m no Miss Muffet on a tuffet, eating porridge). This great spider was racing straight towards me!
I’d not seen one quite like this runner, quickly grabbed my camera, got two shots of it to aid identification then grabbed a plastic jug to drop over it with intent to slide paper underneath to enable resettlement in the garden.
But Spider was too big, with great agility got away. The jug was 4″ across, that’s how I know Spider must have been 5″ because his… more likely a she! … her legs extended beyond the jug and as an acrobat she made her escape, shot up the wall, leapt down in a mighty jump and hid who knows where!
Frantically I pulled out books, heaps of archaeological magazines, towers of scribblings, punched cushions, dragged furniture knowing I could be in a spot of bother: several very nasty spiders are as big as my hand! Defeated I identified in my local wildlife book by spots on its back, head markings and arrangement of legs that Spider was a Huntsman (previously I’d seen relatively flat headed/abdomened ones – not fat rounded).
Apparently 30 species of Huntsman are found locally. Warning: never be tempted to swat or squash one as the abdomen can explode material “that can render the attacker blind for up to two days.”
Although my “panic” maybe unwarranted, I sure did not want Spider dropping from the ceiling onto my head in night’s middle. I was tempted to spray flyspray around my bedroom doorway for the night but did not want to kill a good mosquito/bug-catcher, or because it was so beautiful although remarkably scary.
Elizabeth F Woodfield - A Greek Matinee 