Horror as Woman Finds Enormous Hairy Spider in Her Cereal Bowl

While doing the morning dishes, a mom in New South Wales, Australia, made a chilling discovery.

Brooke Burton caught sight of an enormous spider dangling its front legs in the milk in her cereal bowl among the squares of shredded wheat.

"The moment I spotted it and it spotted me, it dove its head into the bowl and started drinking," Burton told Newsweek. "It definitely caught me by surprise and I jumped back."

The 3-inch spider had been living in Burton's house for several days before the incident.

"That morning, it had made its way to my kitchen window above the sink," she said. "It happily watched me make breakfast and we kept a happy distance from each other. I felt nervous it was so close but thought it would move on soon enough."

When Burton left to drop off her children at school, the spider was still on the window. But, on her return, it had disappeared.

"I approached the sink and much to my surprise it was perched on the edge of the cereal bowl," she said. "Calmly I let the spider know the sink was all its until it was ready to move on. I was also hoping it would move on quickly so I would not have to capture and release it to get my sink back."

Burton shared photos of the slurping spider to the Australian spider identification page on Facebook.

"I wanted to know what kind of huntsman it was and I also started to panic that the milk may be bad for it," she said. "It also fascinated me that it was so game to drink in front of me."

The spider—which Burton described as a "wall puppy"—was identified as a Sydney grey huntsman, Isopeda villosa, a large spider species native to New South Wales

"I like to call Huntsmen wall puppies because it helps calm my fears over such a large spider," Burton said. "We see quite a lot in our house [as] we are on farm land. I usually leave my husband to get them out of our house because I have a bit of a fear of spiders and do not like to get too close."

However, the dirty dishes in the sink were already attracting flies, and Burton knew what she had to do.

"I grabbed an ice cream container and lid and braced myself and I managed to get the guts up to move the cup," she said. "I put the container as close to the spider as I could and touched it gently with the lid. It climbed into the container and I scooped it up as quickly as I could and popped the lid on. I was so relieved.

"I took the spider outside to a shrub and slowly pulled the lid back and shook the spider out gently. It crawled along the scrub and then made its way down into it. It all worked out well for me and the full-bellied wall puppy. I could now do the dishes and get on with my day."