Nursery Web Spider with its prey (a moth in its mouth)
Or at least, we think it's a nursery web spider!
I know I've posted before on this blog about finding large spiders in our basement. I've also written about the difficulty of the decisions to be made when my husband catches one: do I tell him to get rid of it, or do we keep it around to kill the other bugs downstairs? And when considering "other bugs," I would think of these being primarily other smaller spiders, or, centipedes. I do hate centipedes so much more than spiders.
Thus far, my decision has always been to get rid of the large spider and suffer whatever the consequences may be.
And now the question is raised once more, this time with the biggest spider yet. And the question seems to be lingering. As I struggle to decide, my husband is happily catching daily prey for this hairy arachnid and watching it feast. I must say, the longer we have it, the less monstrous it seems. I'm truly unsure: do we keep it and put it back in the basement--hoping that, yes, it was the limiting factor to the centipede population this season, or, do we set it free far, far from our home to feast on other large insects in the neighborhood? I suppose I am more unsure this time because I have actually seen what it eats. And yes, I believe it is very possible that this spider, on its own, could have been capturing every centipede in our basement and chowing down on all of their many, many legs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Oh, the dilemmas. And so it comes to you, my dear readers, to offer me some insight. I thought it might be helpful to me to see what you thought you might do in my situation....
**this was a free polling website and seems to have a nice spam ad at the top (something like "congratulations!" etc.--please make sure you don't click on it and ruin your computer somehow. :) )
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