Brit mum terrified as giant tarantula with a 'nasty bite' turns up outside her front door

A mum has been left stunned after a tarantula the "size of her hand" turned up outside her house.

Sarah Rodmell, 30, from Stapleford, Notts said builders working at her family home "stepped back" in horror when they found an aggressive species native to the south of Africa in her front garden.

The mum-of-two and school worker, who is scared of spiders, gave the curled-up creepy crawly a nudge - only for it to start moving.

After braving her fears and scooping up the tarantula into a box, Ms Rodmell then took it into her kitchen, where it was kept while they called a reptile expert to take it away.

The creepy crawly proved a hit with Sarah Rodmell's kids, who named it 'Dobby' (Sarah Rodmell / SWNS)

Sarah’s daughter Kacie, 13, managed to identify the eight-legged creature as an Orange Baboon tarantula, thanks to the distinctive markings on its back.

The unexpected guest proved to be a hit among the children during its stay at the household, and three-year-old son Rudi even begged his mum to keep the creepie-crawlie, affectionately naming it 'Dobby'.

Recalling the family's efforts to identify the tarantula, Sarah said: “We started looking at the patterns on it and my daughter started Googling different types and decided it was an orange baboon tarantula.

The creature, believed to be a orange baboon tarantula, was kept in the kitchen before collection by a reptile expert (Sarah Rodmell / SWNS)

“The markings matched the descriptions and we Googled whether it was venomous. We had it for a few hours in the house, my son wanted to keep it. I was like ‘don’t get attached’. He ended up naming it Dobby.

“I'm terrified of spiders but I worked in a care home and they brought snakes and a tarantula in, so I conquered my fears of them.

Orange baboon tarantulas are native to the south of Africa (Sarah Rodmell / SWNS)

She said Washington’s Relentless Reptiles in nearby Loughborough arrived to collect the stray spider "straight away", and before long she was greeted with potential explanations for the surprise guest after posting her discovery on Facebook.

One man got in contact to say he had lost an orange baboon tarantula while moving out of his property on her street back in July, meaning it had potentially survived outside until now.

The orange baboon tarantula is found on the African continent, including Angola, as well as central, eastern, and southern Africa. They are incredibly defensive and should not be held.