Spider Woman

[firebyrd]

It's a good thing Eric was at the store. A little bit ago, I went to get Bea up from her nap. She had a diaper cover on with crappy velcro, so had one of the fancy diaper covers from a dress over the plain functional one to help keep it together. In between those two covers? A big old spider. Very startling, to say the least. I mean, how the heck does a spider go up her pants and then under some fairly form-fitting elastic to get up there? Especially since this was a fairly large specimen.

My protective inclinations warred with each other for a moment, long enough for rationality to resume, and I used her pants to scoop up the spider to protect both it and me and took it outside. It was really quite gorgeous, a deep red cephalothorax with a cream abdomen. After looking at it for a minute, I let it go and went back in to change her diaper and then identify it.

Turns out it's a pillbug/woodlouse/etc spider, Dysdera crocata (named for what it eats), and it's one of the most commonly found inside spiders in Utah. Odd, because I don't recall seeing one in the house before. The pictures I'm looking at have quite a wide range of colors on the cephalothorax, from brown to red, so maybe I'm just not remembering a more plain brown one. I'm assuming I've seen them outside at some point, though.

Here is the best resemblance to it that I've found. It was a much deeper red, though. Very pretty, as I said, and fortunately harmless. Still, if Bea develops any super powers in the near future, I guess I better look for a spider bite in her nether regions...

Comments

[mistytsim.livejournal.com]

Thanks for not putting a picture up. I just about cried when I read this. I mean, your baby almost DIED! /arachnophobia

I am glad that I'm not the only person this happens to, though. About a month ago when I was changing Squeaker's diaper I noticed a meal worm crawling in between her Onesie and her shirt. Needless to say it creeped me out wondering how it got in there. It's strange, as I had the same reaction of focusing on calmly taking care of the situation.

I killed my bug, however. Alert PETA. I'm sure they have a "Bug" division.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't really calm for a second, but my protective instincts warring paused for long enough to let me become calm. There was the whole, "SPIDER ON MY BABY YOU DIE YOU SOB!" reaction and the, "Spider! Save it before Eric kills it!" reaction. Having both of them at once was paralyzing for a moment. Fortunately for the spider, that moment was long enough for me to overcome the mother bear reaction.

And honestly...given the large, bulbous nature of its abdomen, aside from liking spiders, I'm glad I didn't experience the guts squishing all over my hand, which would have been how I'd have had to kill it given the location. This wasn't a spider that would just be a bit crunchy, this would have been a juicy one.