The demise of the Cat-faced Spider

This was a poignant story in my life... When I was a kid my parents caught a spider that looked like this, a "cat faced" spider. They caught it for me because they thought I would like to see it, because it is pretty much the most bad ass spider I have ever seen in my life!

I now, know it was a Araneus gemmoides, commonly known as the Jewel Spider (a name shared with Austracantha minax) and Cat-faced Spider.

So with the coolest spider ever, I went to school to show my friends and my science teacher. The spider was a creature of much wonder, many ooo'ed and awwwed at it. Seems to me I was in my science class and my teacher wanted to talk to me about an unrelated matter, so I went up to her desk. When I returned to my desk, I was presented with the jar the spider was in. Now the poor thing had a gash in it's large abdomen where orange-brownish gook was leaking out... Presumably important stuff for it to remain alive. Apparently a boy that sat next to me thought it was fun to spin the spider around the jar. I was told sorry of course.

I was devastated, I had never intended for that spider to be harmed, it was going to have it's one day adventure going to my school and then I was going to set it free when I got home. I felt so guilty, and rightly so, that creature lost it's life because I took it out of it's home.