Michigan mom finds giant Australian spider in toddler's room

June 2 (UPI) -- A Michigan mom said she was shocked to learn a massive spider she killed in her toddler son's room was a huntsman spider from Australia.

Jillian Duke said she was in her 21-month-old son's bedroom at Spring Hill Apartments in Shelby Township early Wednesday morning when she spotted what initially appeared to be "a big ball of string."

"I looked over thinking it was a big ball of string and it turned out it had eyes and it was a big spider," Duke told WXYZ-TV.

"I actually thought it was a cluster of spiders, and then I realized it was just one," she told WWJ radio.

Duke said she swept the toddler and her 9-month old son out of the room.

"I was still kind of like, 'What is going on?' I took a picture of it, I sent it to my husband, and said, 'There's a monster spider in Alex's room!'" she said.

Duke said she dropped a pile of books on the spider and struck it with a broom. She said her 73-year-old father came over and stepped on the spider just to make sure it was dead.

"He's 73, he's pipelined across the country, he couldn't believe the size of the spider and he's never seen anything like that," Duke said.

Duke posted photos of the spider on Facebook and took the slain arachnid to Pets & Things off Van Dyke Road in Utica, where employees consulted with entomologists and specialists at Cranbrook Institute of Science.

The experts determined it was an "Australian Huntsman Spider, which would be one of the largest spiders in the world, but completely harmless, outside of an allergic reaction to it's venom," said Randy John Lee, an employee at Pets & Things.

Duke said she wants her apartment complex to spray for pests to make sure the huntsman was alone.

"They think that it came in like on a shipment of produce; they said something about plants," Duke said. "How it got into my apartment, I believe it got through the furnace closet from the outside. There are holes that we found."

"This thing is huge. It needs a leash," Duke said.