A man was horrified to discover that what he thought was a "glittery" spider was actually the reflection of dozens of eyeballs as a clump of baby arachnids clung to their mother's back.
The unlucky householder, named Bamshki, started filming an unusual arachnid he saw in his home—rather than killing it, which is the default reaction of many.
The large dark spider appears to be glinting, as Bamshki, believed to be from Australia, films the insect from all angles, capturing its "sparkles."
He chats to a woman off-camera, saying: "Oh wow. That is dope. You should see what I'm seeing, it's glittery. Watch, watch, watch, look at this, It sparkles."
The next scene cuts to the spider in a different location—and she is not alone anymore.
Bamshki then says: "It's eyes. Those sparkles on its butt weren't sparkles, it was little tiny eyeballs. Oh my f****** god they're literally all around its body."
Numerous baby spiders can be seen around the mother, as her brood starts hatching.
The clip, which contains strong language, has amassed more than 150,000 views since it was uploaded to TikTok on Wednesday, as well as many horrified comments.
Stephen Evans said: "As soon as I saw the sparkles, I knew it was thousands of tiny spiderling eyes."
Wee Ava wrote: "I thought it was a boujie glitter spider."
Kelly added: "Oh honey, that's not glitter, that's the thing of nightmares."
Irdfc_ok claimed: "I'd grab a flamethrower so fast, I've had huge spiders but I can't knowingly deal with possibly 50 spiders roaming about."
Canibefrank said: "I knew as soon as I ruled out a robotic spider it was babies. Oh no, nope. Grab a lighter and a deodorant can, quick."
Charles Welch said: "Now you got hundreds of friends."
Jesse Scarrot said: "I thought it was a cool spider until those demons started crawling everywhere. Burn the house down bro."
It seems Bamshki did well not to squash the spider, as Jade Malouf wrote: "I made the mistake of trying to squish one with all its babies. It exploded baby spiders. Nearly burned the house down lol."
Although the identification has not been confirmed, the arachnid was described by many commenters as a female wolf spider.
A TikTok user named Brandon said: "Wolfspider with her babies, they ride on her back till they're ready to leave then run for their life."
Some users thanked Bamshki for not killing the mom, as he replied: "I just can't do it to any little thing."
Bamshki later joked, "I thought I found a diamond spider," although he did add, "I needed it outside."
The female wolf spider is known for her maternal instincts, laying around 100 eggs at a time, according to the Chesapeake Bay restoration program.
"Once mated, the female spins a round egg sac, attaches it to her abdomen and it carries around with her. The young hatch inside, then emerge and climb on mom's back until they're old enough to live on their own," National Geographic explained.
This is unusual in arachnids, as the Australian Museum points out on its website: "Such a high degree of parental care is relatively unusual among spiders."
Newsweek has reached out to Bamshki for comment.
