Sunday, 19 August 2007

Mmmm... Eggs

Over dinner last night, my mother noticed one of those large spindly spiders hovering near the wall behind me (going by the look on her face and her reaction to me asking what she'd seen, I half expected it to be on the back of the couch I was sitting on). She snatched it up with our handy little spider vacuum thing and left it out in the kitchen, to be disposed of humanely later.

That was the last I thought of it until, late in the night, I popped downstairs to get myself some water. The spider vacuum and its occupant were still on the kitchen worktop.

I noticed something odd about the spider - its shape was wrong.

Upon closer inspection, this was because it was carrying something (comparatively) large and round.

My father was still awake and watching TV in the lounge, so I took it to him to have a look. He couldn't identify it without a magnifying glass, but thought it was either eggs or cocooned prey, so I took it back out to the kitchen and had a closer look.

The large thing turned out to be made up of lots of smaller round things.

Spider eggs.

Anyone who's ever seen one of these spider vacuums will know that the grille above the fan isn't exactly fine enough to prevent the egress of many tiny baby spiders... and no-one really wants a whole clutch of baby spiders running around their kitchen, so I unlocked the back door, took it outside, and threw the damned thing away into the rainy night.

I am somewhat surprised I didn't dream about it...

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