By Frank Kamuntu
Everyone loves a souvenir from holiday. But rather than a fridge magnet or a stick of rock, one woman returned home with a hairy eight-legged friend.
Anyone who has seen the horror film Arachnophobia knows this is practically the start of the jump-scare movie so it’s no surprise she was left feeling a little worried about the discovery.
Explaining that she found the spider in her suitcase after returning home from Uganda, East Africa, she shared several snaps of the arachnid on social media. The anonymous woman stated she had flown into Los Angeles airport and revealed that she wasn’t sure what to do with it now that it had been caught.
After being inundated with questions and comments, many people urged her to hand it over to authorities or destroy it as it could wreak havoc on the ecosystem if it escaped. A person claiming to be a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife wrote: “We don’t take stuff like that and we would just dispatch it.
“This state spends millions of dollars on invasive species control. It’s a nice thought to keep it alive in a perfect world where a spider enthusiast cares for it forever, but the reality is that the risk to our native ecosystems is so high that it’s not even worth it. Stick it in ethanol and keep it on your shelf.”
Many worried the spider could be pregnant, which may allow its babies to get out. Another user added: “Definitely see about finding an arachnologist who could take her off your hands, arachnologists will know how to handle her if she does have babies and assure they don’t escape into the wild, which could be a problem if they were to establish themselves as an invasive species.”
Despite the extensive comments, it appeared no one was sure what type of spider it was, with many just describing it as a “terrifying guest” and that it sounded like the start of a movie.
With so many people invested in the outcome of the identification, the woman later revealed that the spider had sadly died saying it must have been a “rough journey” for the poor thing as she had been in the air for 24 hours. She wrote: “Sadly, she died shortly after we found her. She had been in there for over 40 hours, went through two long-haul flights, and was stuck in there with direct exposure to several clothing items I treated with permethrin for my primate treks. Poor thing was more resilient than most.”
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