We fondly remember the days when spiders had the decency to be no bigger than your thumbnail.
All that has gone now with the arrival of gigantic, baby-eating spiders as witnessed in Mayo this week.
Unaccustomed to big arachnids, Irish people are scared stiff of the larger specimens, but not Ben Wohlers.
Ben and his daughter encountered this cuddly fella in Dublin over the weekend and he had no problem *shriek* picking him up and allowing the beast to crawl up his arm.
It probably helps that Ben is originally a native of New Zealand where they have 1134 different spider species including this cutie:
Black Tunnel Web spider – courtesy of Tepata.nz
This friendly fella, the Nelson cave spider:
Not to forget the highly venomous Katipo spider:
Pic courtesy of Wikipedia
*Shudder*