Another big, hairy Honduran spider

Big, hairy Honduran spider

So here is another tarantula – or wolf spider – or other Honduran spider of some kind. Last time I misidentified (see the comments), so maybe I should just say here is another big, hairy spider.

Sorry the photos are so bad. It's almost impossible to get a decent photo inside my house at night. Besides, I was probably shaking at the time and I was definitely in a hurry to dispose of the spider before it got away to some hiding place. ;-) Rather than taking blog photos, El Jefe wanted to kill it – right away! – but I was opposed. If it was a tarantula, it really isn't harmful, just big and scary.

A little bit better look

After I took this photo showing its size compared to my hand, it ran around the corner of the wall, almost too high for me to reach. I held a big plastic bag against the wall and used a piece of paper to sort of scoop/slide the spider down into the bag. Then I quickly closed the bag and dumped the spider outside the window. That all sounds pretty calm and collected, but there were a few frightened screams along the way.

A better way to do it is if you have a smallish box, put the box over the spider on the wall or floor, slide a piece of paper between the box and the wall and then gently remove the box, holding the paper tight against it. Take the box outside, dump the spider, and run.

By the way, based on the length of my fingers and the fact that my hand was a few inches closer to the camera, I'd estimate that the spider was between 4 1/2 and 5 inches, unstretched. If you search Google Images for tarantulas, you'll see a bunch of photos of people holding them in their hands. Wow. I wish I was brave enough to do that, but I'm not.

Here's a photo of another large spider found in the house. Again it was night and couldn't get a good photo. It's been awhile, but I think I remember that I couldn't catch this one. I haven't seen it around, though, so maybe it decided the pickings were better outside.

I don't know if this is so much a cultural difference since there are people everywhere who believe that all spiders and snakes should be killed, but it has definitely been a struggle for me to convince people that spiders and most snakes are actually a good thing to have around. They provide a balance in nature.  El Jefe  has become a believer about snakes but he wasn't so sure about a spider of this size and it is just about impossible to convince workers not to kill every snake on sight.

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"So what's with that finger?" I hear you asking. Coming up next...