Staff working at a shipping container facility in the United Kingdom got quite the fright after opening up a container and finding the world’s largest spider inside.
The incident was said to have been an accident that happened when the huntsman spider, which is venomous and can grow up to 12 inches long, crawled into the container while in China and then traveled 5,000 miles across the ocean to where it was found still alive.
You can imagine the nightmarish look on the staff’s faces when they first spotted the creepy crawler. Fortunately, the spider’s bite isn’t lethal but has been known to cause feelings of having a fast-beating, fluttering, or pounding heart, as well as headaches, and vomiting.
After being spotted, the staff called the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) that’s been helping animals since 1824, to come and remove the animal.
An RSPCA spokesperson told the Mirror that the spider, “fancied a holiday so he hopped on a shipping container in China and ended up in Hull” adding that “he gave staff quite a fright.” They said the spider is now having “some R&R at a specialist rescue centre.”
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The RSPCA said that this is not the first time that a huntsman spider has made its way to the United Kingdom. Two years ago at a warehouse in Southwold, Suffolk a container was found to have a huntsman in it but, fortunately, it was much smaller.
Jason Finch, an RSPCA inspector said, “This spider was on the smaller side and was only around 6cm (2.5in) from leg to leg. He’d obviously been in the container for some time, without access to food and water, but he was still active and seemed to be OK.”
Finch added that this kind of discovery happens quite often and that spiders, along with insects and reptiles, can be picked up by mistake and wind up being shut inside containers.
Jason said for anyone who makes a discovery like this to start by “treating any unidentified animal with caution until identified accurately and not to try to handle an accidentally imported animal that has been discovered.”