It's a... bee?

It began innocently enough: I had the pretty little yellow card and a pen in hand with my mission quite clear - read and record the meter numbers for the electric company. I was ticking things off my list, 'read the meters' was next, simple enough. I open the door to the utility room and flick on the light, and almost step on this gargantuous spider lurking in the darkness. That wasn't on the list...

Thank goodness it had some issue with lint and dust on its wings and couldn't fly, or one of us might not have lived to tell the tale. My daughter, responding to my shriek, suggested (insisted really) that we catch the whatever it was (she says it's a bee) and let it free outside, where it is pictured here, life size.

It really is kind of pretty now that I understand it is NOT a spider...