She Found the Most Unexpected Souvenir Crawling Out of Her Luggage
“He really did hop off the plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan.”
After an unforgettable trip to Uganda, Reddit user misc_cat_potatoes thought her journey had come to an end the moment she landed back home in Los Angeles. But as she was unpacking her luggage, something moved.
And it had eight legs.
A Giant Surprise
Buried in a duffel bag full of hiking gear, between layers of treated clothes and trekking gear, was a massive spider — motionless at first, then clearly alive.
“I squealed,” she admitted in her Reddit post. But instead of reaching for a shoe, she grabbed a container and carefully ushered the spider inside. Despite the shock, her instinct was to protect it, not harm it.
The spider — which many users speculated was some kind of baboon spider (a tarantula species native to Africa) — had survived over 40 hours of international travel, including two long-haul flights, being buried under luggage piles, and sitting alongside permethrin-treated clothing meant for gorilla treks.
“She had already lost a leg when I found her,” the poster later wrote in an update. “Poor thing was more resilient than most.”
The Internet Erupted
Within hours of posting the story to r/spiders, the internet lit up with jokes, speculation, advice, and a flurry of puns that would make any entomologist roll their eyes:
- “Uganda be kidding me.”
- “Kenya take this seriously?”
- “Cairo stop laughing at this comment thread.”
But beneath the humor was genuine concern.
Several commenters flagged the environmental risk of accidentally introducing a non-native species into California’s ecosystem. One user put it bluntly:
“Under no circumstances should it be allowed to enter the wild. It’s imperative you find an actual, responsible program for it or otherwise it must unfortunately be killed… The consequences of a potentially gravid specimen escaping into our already fragile ecosystems in California is nightmare fuel.”
Others noted the spider’s unusually large abdomen and warned she might be gravid — carrying eggs. Even the possibility of foreign microscopic organisms hitching a ride concerned the community.
But OP had already taken action.
A Responsible Response
She immediately began contacting authorities, including the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the USDA, and the Natural History Museum of LA, sending photos and detailed notes to every department that might help.
“I want to be very clear — when I said ‘unexpected souvenir,’ I truly meant UNEXPECTED,” she clarified. “I had no idea she was in my bag, would not have smuggled in an animal of any sort, would absolutely have declared her.”
Her bag had been scanned repeatedly at the Uganda-Rwanda border, the Kigali airport, Istanbul, and again in Los Angeles.
Somehow, the spider had made it through every checkpoint — tucked deep inside a duffel bag of jungle gear.
A Bittersweet Ending
Unfortunately, the spider didn’t survive.
Just hours after being discovered, she passed away — likely from stress, toxic exposure, and dehydration.
“She had been in there for several days under quite unfavorable conditions… I was actually devastated,” the Redditor wrote.
“After she died, my husband wrapped her in a paper towel, smashed her head and body quickly and thoroughly, and flushed her down the toilet. It was a panic decision.”
Even in death, the couple worried about safe disposal. “We definitely didn’t want to just put the body outside,” she said, adding that bleach tabs were in the toilet tank and the area was later sanitized thoroughly.
The story struck a nerve online — balancing comedy, concern, awe, and compassion in a way that only real-life spider encounters can.
Eight Legs, Big Impact
“I wish this had a happier ending for her,” she wrote. “Someone could have studied her and made use of her wanderlust ways — I clearly relate to her in that sense.”
She checked every item she brought home, vacuumed every bag, inspected her gear with gloves and a headlamp, and found no signs of eggs or other stowaways.
But the spider left behind something bigger than webs:
A story full of wonder, a dash of horror, and a surprisingly heartfelt tribute to a tiny traveler who never meant to leave home — but did.
