OleCrick/InstagramI think all spider-haters would agree there’s probably nothing worse than finding what appears to be a little furball, only to discover it’s actually hundreds of daddy long legs.
It’s the kind of things nightmares are made of, amirite?
A horrifying clip has emerged of a man reaching for what looks like said furball that had gathered in the corner of a wall.
However, when the man, believed to be in Texas, picks up the ‘furball’, it quickly disintegrates in his hands, as hundreds of daddy long legs spiders crawl away.
He scoops up the cluster of arachnids and brings it closer to the camera, which reveals the creatures crawling away in what looks like pieces of fluff or dust.
The spiders are clearly disturbed by the man’s hands, prompting them to run in all different directions, leaving just a few straggler spiders remaining in his hands.
OleCrick/InstagramTo be specific, the spiders are actually harvestmen, which are known more commonly as daddy long legs.
While they look very similar to spiders on the outside, they’re quite different creatures.
Daddy long legs are closer relations of scorpions and unlike spiders, they don’t produce venom to kill their prey.
Understandably, viewers were horrified by the clip, which left many people feeling like their skin was crawling.
Although it hasn’t been proven, scientists believe that harvestmen cluster together in a bid to make themselves look bigger to put off predators, which is quite unfortunate when you think it actually makes them look less scary to humans from a distance. It’s also been suggested they could be using it as a method of keeping warm.
While finding the cluster of daddy long legs would no doubt be a terrifying experience for most people, one woman one-upped the fella in Texas, when she found a giant Huntsman spider in her house.
The poor unsuspecting woman, Laree Clarke, returned home yesterday (July 30) to find the huge creepy crawly just chilling on her property in Australia.
Laree desperately took to Facebook where she begged the people of Bluewater News group to help if they could remove the spider, which she described as the same size as her hand.
She later edited the post to update everyone that the spider had been ‘safely removed’ – although the details of this removal are not known.
Has anyone else got the heebiejeebies now?
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.