Dynamo came running in to me while I was making dinner this evening shouting, “Mum, Mum, come and look at the spider with a million babies on its back!”
I thought it would be typical Dynamo exaggeration – a spider with maybe one or two of its young. I wasn’t prepared for this creature from a nightmare. It just had to have its picture taken.
I’m not fond of these spiders. They’re called Wolf Spiders (or 'Wolfies') and though they’re not particularly poisonous, their bites do pack quite a wallop. I got bitten by a small one once and the lump on my finger itched for months (serves me right for gardening without gloves). They live in the ground and under anything they can find and if you go out at night with a torch you can see their eyes shining as two tiny blue lights every few feet, as they sit in the grass waiting for prey to pass by. Creepy.
Normally the female (I presume, don’t quote me) carries the egg sac around with her. I guess this one’s egg had just hatched. There must have been over a hundred tiny little spiderlings jumping off her back then back on again. Ugh, that means a hundred more of the horrible things to crawl into the house and scare the wits out of me when I pick something up off the floor.
Have you ever seen anything more nightmarish? I don’t think I’ll go to sleep tonight.
