‘As big as my hand.’ Huge tarantula spotted outside Texas family’s home
A Texas family recently had an unwelcome visitor at their new San Antonio home, leaving them a little creeped out.
After moving from the Dallas-Fort Worth area eight months ago, the Thomas family had a late-arriving guest wanting to welcome them to the neighborhood Friday.
The sight of the massive tarantula was one that freaked out the couple, but the “brave” husband quickly got to work to capture it.
“My back was turned against the door that leads to the patio and I saw my husband’s face and he was like, ‘Oh my God, what the heck is that?’” Teouna Thomas recalled. “He doesn’t scare easily and looking at his facial expression and hearing what he said, I expected to see some monster.”
The monstrous spider was as big as her hand, she said.
With the couple’s puppy on the patio just inches away from the tarantula, Ken Thomas knew he had to get the spider away from the dog.
“I’m like almost in tears thinking he’s going to bite my puppy and he wouldn’t live through it,” the wife said. “My husband said, ‘Grab the camera and also, I want to catch it.’ ”
He grabbed a plastic container and went outside. The spider, perhaps afraid, stopped crawling up the window and Teouna banged on the indoor glass, which caused the spider to fall into the container Ken was holding, Teouna said.
After Ken drilled holes into the closed container so the spider could breathe, Teouna urged the front office at her apartment complex to spray for spiders, she said.
An employee at the complex took the spider off the couple’s hands and released it back into the wild. “We have a lot of brush behind our complex. Hopefully she didn’t release it there,” Teouna said.
San Antonio Zoo personnel told KSAT the spider is likely a Texas Tan Tarantula, which can grow up to 4 to 6 inches but are otherwise mostly harmless.
“They can bite, and yes, it will inflict some mild to moderate pain but there has never been any reports or history of anyone dying from this tarantula bite,” according to PestProApp.com. “Most people have compared the bite to that of a bee sting and will only suffer from slight swelling but no long-lasting ill effects.”
It’s the largest spider Teouna Thomas has ever seen, she said. She commended her “brave” husband for capturing it.
“I didn’t support him doing that, but I knew we had to get him off,” she said. “Now it creeps us out a little bit.”
This story was originally published June 22, 2020 at 10:18 AM with the headline "‘As big as my hand.’ Huge tarantula spotted outside Texas family’s home."