Huge tarantula found in UK front garden

Given the colder climate, us Brits aren't used to seeing massive spiders.

So it certainly came as shock to one arachnophobic mum when she discovered a South African tarantula the "size of her hand" crawling about in her front garden.

Renovation work was being carried out on Sarah Rodmell's home in Stapleford, Nottinghamshire on Friday (October 21) when builders informed her they have found the huge arachnid.

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The 30-year-old was able to summon the courage and put her fears aside to give the tarantula a nudge but couldn't believe her eyes when it moved in reaction.

She then bravely managed to scoop up the tarantula into a box and moved it into her kitchen before calling reptile experts to come and take it away.

It was later confirmed to be an Orange Baboon tarantula, an aggressive species which possesses an extremely painful bite and are native to Africa - so this spider was 7,000 miles away.

Arachnophobes look away... this is the Orange Baboon tarantula that was found in Sarah's house while builders were renovating the propertySWNS

School worker Sarah said: “It was 9am and the builders were doing work on the roof and they left some of their materials outside on the front.

“They saw this thing on the front curled up. They didn’t know what it was but as soon as they found out it was a tarantula they all stepped back.

“I kind of gave it a little nudge and it got on its feet and started wiggling. We got a box and we poked it into it.

"It was a bit surreal to see it chilling in a box in my kitchen.

"Every time I was walking in the kitchen, I was going 'oh my God, I have a tarantula in my house'."

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

Her three-year-old son Rudi affectionately named it Dobby and even begged his mum to keep the creepie-crawlie.

Sarah added: “We started looking at the patterns on it and my daughter started Googling different types and decided it was an orange baboon tarantula.

“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.

“This tarantula has a nasty bite and an aggressive temperament.

“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.

“But you won’t catch me near any other spiders.

“Thankfully Washington’s Relentless Reptiles in Loughborough collected the spider straight away.

“This guy got in contact with me after I put it on Facebook and he lost an Orange Baboon tarantula a while ago moving.

"He lived on the same street as me but moved house in July. Somehow it survived until now. He just couldn’t find it, so it must have escaped.”

The Orange Baboon Tarantula can grow six inches in length and is primarily found on the African continent, in Angola as well as central, eastern and western Africa.

It has a notoriously aggressive nature and is known to have a very painful bite so experts advise people to avoid holding them.

Additional reporting by Adam Dutton SWNS.

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