A woman was recently terrified by a very large, very scary spider she found in her toddler’s bedroom learned that it didn’t walk in there on its own — it probably hitched a ride with a big box store.

The Michigan woman tells WXYZ that she noticed something odd in her almost two-year-old son’s room on Wednesday morning. She thought maybe it was a big ball of string… except then she realized it had eyes.

“I went to go reach for it and I kind of backed up and I said that’s just too much string,” she said.

She says she panicked and killed it with heavy books, and then took it to a local pet store to have it identified. Entomologists with the Cranbrook Institute of Science weighed in and decided it’s very likely an arachnid that is not native to Michigan at all, but is more at home in tropical climes on other continents.

It’s probably an “Australian Huntsman Spider, which would be one of the largest spiders in the world, but completely harmless, outside of an allergic reaction to its venom,” said one of the pet store employees.

It likely came from a tropical plant shipped over by a big box store selling flowers and trees, he added.

In any case, you might want to give that houseplant a good shake before you bring it home from the store — unless you’re in the market for a new pet.

“This thing is huge. It needs a leash,” the woman said.

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