Roll Over and Play Dead!

Remember the other day when I found this at my front entrance?
A spider just laying on its side after I opened the front door? I said that day that I was left with a conundrum when I came home after work to find it gone. And how strange it was that it was laying on it's side with it's legs stretched out like that. Not rolled up in a little ball, like they usually are when they die.

Well today I came home from work, closed my screen door and looked down and saw this...
There he is again, sitting in the filthy corner of my front entrance. And do you see the way his eye is glowing in the image? *shiver*

I yelled out to Woodrow to come see the big spider. He asked whether I wanted to kill it or scoot it out. I told him that I definitely didn't want to kill it if I didn't have to. So we grabbed a cover to a stack of CDs and some cardboard.

When Woodrow dropped the cover over him and scooted him out from the wall, he fell onto his back and just played dead.


Woodrow got him flipped back over when putting the cardboard under the spider, and Fred (we call all spiders Fred) moved a little to confirm he was indeed alive.

Here is a quick video of Fred while he was contained.


Then we walked him across the street and let him go near the storm drain, in some tall grass.


*sigh* Why do these spiders seek me out? I'm terrified of spiders, and it seems to amuse them to freak me out. Now the real question is: Since when do spiders play dead? I've never seen such a thing. Anyone ever heard of a spider playing dead?