This guy was really upset, and rightly so!
A wave of terrible shock ran through a man when he unpacked his suitcase after a vacation in Mexico and found a hairy tarantula almost 5 inches long in his jeans.
“I let out a scream!” James Mugridge, 31, of England, confessed to the South West News Service. “It really was the last thing he expected.”
Mugridge, a business consultant who flew to Cancun with his girlfriend Emma Forrester, 27, for a two-week holiday on April 15, had just returned to the UK when he made the shocking discovery.
While unloading his luggage, an unsuspecting Mugridge went bulging-eyed when he saw the legs of the huge spider, believed to be a Mexican red-rumped tarantula, peeking out of his blue jeans.
But after prying the crease off the jeans with a pair of chopsticks, he realized the eight-legged invader, known scientifically as Tliltocatl vagans, had died in transit.
“I think it was in [the jeans] for a couple of days at least,” Mugridge said.
During his excursion to Mexico, he and Forrester made the two-hour drive from Cancun to Tulum, where they stayed at various jungle-style hotels.
While vacationing in the wild, the couple came across several Mexican redbottoms; however, they had no intention of taking one home as a souvenir.
The couple were clueless to the fact that the creature had hidden in Mugridge’s luggage.
“We are lucky because the bag was supposed to come in the [airplane] cabin,” he said. “But there wasn’t enough space, so they put it on the [cargo] hold.”
“The tarantula subsequently froze to death,” Mugridge added, “but in the cabin, I’m afraid it would have been alive and well.”
After the goosebumps incident, Mugridge learned that the Mexican red rump sting is mostly harmless to humans.
“The sting is said to be worse than a bee sting, but it’s not fatal,” he admitted.
Putting aside his revelation about his furry hitchhiker’s fangs, Mugridge recalls the initial panic that hit him upon encountering the Mexican arachnid.
“I was absolutely terrified when I saw that the little thing had gotten into my jeans,” he said.