COLORADO, USA — The good news? Wolf spiders are pretty common in Colorado, and you can just shoo them out the door if they’re bothering you. The bad news? THAT THEY EXIST AT ALL.
This train of thought comes courtesy 9NEWS viewer Taylor Marshall, who uploaded a photo of an “enormous spider” she spotted outside her office in Boulder. She said it was around 3 inches long … and that’s 3 inches too long for a spider.
“I have never seen such a thing in Colorado and it gives me goosebumps!” she wrote, imploring 9NEWS for help.
Once the 9NEWS digital team recovered from the scare of looking at the photo, we reached out to the Butterfly Pavilion.
Surely the folks there would be interested to know there’s a giant spider on the loose!
But alas … Mario Padilla, who specializes in terrestrial invertebrates, was not concerned about this matter.
“It looks like a wolf spider to me,” he wrote in an email to 9NEWS. “Probably in the genus Hogna, not sure about the species though. They are very common throughout Denver and Colorado and are harmless! If you find them in your home you can shoo them right outside.”
I don’t know about you, but if I saw a 3-inch spider in my home, I would just figure it's there's now and permanently move out.
Moving on …
According to the Colorado State University Extension, the Hogna genus happens to be the largest of the wolf spiders (some of them are called “giant wolf spiders.”)
“Wolf spiders occasionally enter homes, particularly in areas of new development where their habitat was disturbed,” the CSU Extension website reads. “They are normally shy and not dangerous to humans, although large species can bite."
Well, the more you know. Although in this case, ignorance about wolf spiders was bliss.
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