A man found the world's largest spider nest in the boot of his car in a gut-wrenching discovery.
Jared Splatt had agreed to give some friends a lift and was cleaning out his car when he discovered the huntsman spider, one of Earth’s biggest arachnid species.
He said: “I encountered the horrific sight on opening my car boot, which incidentally hadn’t been opened in a good while.
“I was cleaning out the car to drop some friends off to a winery and I’m now glad I opened the boot.
“I was greeted with a giant huntsman and egg sac on the left hand side.
“My initial response was revulsion but then seeing the bloody thing guarding the egg sac took it to another level.”
The female huntsman produces a white egg sac of papery silk, carrying up to 200 of her young.
Faced with the prospect of being overrun, Mr Splatt lived up to his name.
The 39-year-old said: “I was fairly grossed out and shocked.
“At first with the egg sac I thought ‘oh that’s cute it’s got a backpack’, then it dawned on me what it was.
“The realisation I could have hundreds of baby huntsmans crawling through the car quickly turned it into an annihilation mission.”
He continued: “I grabbed the can of mortein and went to town – scorched earth like Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder.
“I flicked it off the car, covered it in white chemical death and then promptly stomped on the egg sac; some green goop shot out.
“My view was I’d saved the neighbourhood from 200 plus one huntsmans.”
Mr Splatt also checked under his sun visors – another favourite hiding place for huntsmans – to make sure there weren’t any other nasty surprises waiting.
Jared knows some won’t approve of his actions, but it wasn’t the most extreme solution he considered.
He said: “The result may not please the spider lovers but can you imagine hundreds of huntsmans crawling throughout your car?
“Umm yeah – no thanks, I’d rather torch the vehicle if that happened.”
Huntsman spiders are not usually aggressive but females have been known to inflict painful bites on humans when defending their egg sacs.
The spiderlings take up to three weeks to hatch.
