Hundreds of baby spiders explode from mother's egg sac after man hits her with a broom
Australian man unleashes hundreds of creepy crawlies into his home by crushing a female wolf spider
Few things on earth can rival the breathtaking beauty of nature. Unfortunately, the same can be said for its ability to be downright horrifying — particularly when said horrors catch us off-guard.
Danny Ford of Hallett Cove in South Australia experienced this phenomenon first-hand while attempting to rid his home of an eight-legged intruder last week.
In a video uploaded to YouTube on April 12, Ford is seen approaching a large wolf spider with a push broom and smacking it down over the creature's body.
Approximately two seconds later, with the broom still covering the spider, Ford notices movement around the head of the broom.
"There are little babies coming out of it!" he shouts to a woman in the background who lets out a horrified gasp. "Ugh... look at them!... Jesus... look at all the babies!"
As Ford attempts to simultaneously crush the still-moving mother spider and sweep her spiderlings into a pile, hundreds of the tiny arachnids spread across his floor and out of frame.
You can watch the video below, though you may not want to if you're against the idea of having spider-filled nightmares.
More than 3.5 million people have now viewed Ford's video on YouTube alone, the majority of them within the past 24 hours.
Thousands of these viewers have been asking questions about the (late) spider in the comments section, particularly about how the spiderlings "exploded" from her stomach.
For the record, they didn't.
According to the Australian Museum in Sydney, a female wolf spider carries her eggs in a sac made of silk on her back. When the spiderlings hatch from their eggs, they continue to live within this sac on their mom's back until they are "ready to disperse by ballooning or on the ground."
Bites from Wolf Spiders, which can be found all over the world, may cause minor local pain and itchiness in humans. Other than that, they're considered relatively harmless.
Good news for Ford, who has yet to say if he's been able to catch all of the spiderlings in his home.