Hanging by a thread...

It’s somewhat ironic that i am penning (or at last finishing) this article on Save a Spider day. Of course every thing seems to have its own day in this day and age so why not the humble arachnid? Of course it WOULD make far more sense for this special day to be at peak spider season in September/October but to be honest our eight legged friends can do with all the help they can get in the current scaremongering climate.

One of the gutter presses favourite things to write about, we have endured our fair share of outlandish and sensationalist stories regarding spiders. Normally these peak in the autumn and winter months as the spiders encroach upon our homes to escape the cold but the newspapers will generally print a story at any time. So when yet ANOTHER story about spiders hit my newsfeed i figured it would be a grand time to resurrect this half finished article, spruce it up and do MY bit for Save a Spider day….with this in mind please forgive the somewhat schizophrenic sense of tense and timing in this article.

So other than the common house spider (check out my article here) what other arachnid has been in the presses sights? Why no other than the Tube web spider Segestria, particularly S.florentina, a rather beautiful species with iridescent green chelicerae (the mouthparts that house the fangs). Now straight away I want you to lose any notion that this is in anyway similar to the Funnel Web spiders that inhabit Australia, the only similarities are they are both black and the both have 8 legs. Even Atrax robustus (the REAL Sydney Funnel Web) rarely bites people and deaths are extremely uncommon thanks to readily accessible antivenin. By nature spiders are shy and secretive creatures and really don’t have any interest in us at all.

Right where was I? Oh yes, the latest drivel that the gutter press are throwing at us. So the latest headline is 100 GREEN FANGED SPIDERS ATTACK FAMILY!!. Once again, the headline bears only a passing resemblance to the actual story within. The facts behind the story are that someone came across a large number of S.florentina in his garden (this particular species do not generally encroach upon the interiors of houses as they tend to live in the small cracks and holes in brick mortar) and noticed more of them at night, in the words of the 'victim'  (and this is a direct quote)

“I saw one that was the size of a tablespoon and I also managed to catch one after I saw it rush across my fence and then jump off onto the ground.

“It was playing dead and my brother said it was only a bit of dirt, but I put a glass over it and moved it a bit and it shot up.

“I let it go and it moved off so quickly it was unbelievable. As I said I’m not scared of spiders but these made me jump.

Ok, so size of tablespoon, check. S.florentina are a large species.

Caught one (In his hand? If so he clearly wasn't bitten)

and it played dead, fair enough. Spiders will do this, they know if they move they are easier to spot. It’s a very pacifist strategy though i'm sure you will agree.

I put a glass over it and it moved, yup once a spider realizes its possum strategy has failed it will make a dash for it, which it promptly did when the glass was removed. Note that the quote is it moved OFF. Not that it leapt fangs bared.

Right so lets look at the definition of ATTACK

Aggressive and violent act against a person or place: – so not playing dead and scarpering. Case solved, more of the Daily Stars nonsense. Please feel free to email the editor, I am. Including the definition of the word attack. Including THIS one.

Criticize or oppose fiercely and publicly: Wow that sure seems to meet the description of what the Tabloids are doing at the moment. So therefore I put it to you that the Press are attacking the spiders! I’ll go one further and people might think this is a step too far but I honestly belive this to be the case.

The unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims: That is the definition of TERRORISM. Now I am not for one second going to suggest that the papers themselves are a terrorist threat and I do not mean to belittle the danger or importance of real terrorist threats that beset the world at large, BUT the Tabloids are embarking on a campaign of misinformation and intimidation to sell more papers. They have the public so scared that they are living in fear of something that has been part of our lives for centuries without causing major issues and people are going round killing spiders en masse as a result. I have had enough. It is time to set the record straight once and for all about these fanciful tales of redback bites, worlds deadliest spiders in bunches of bananas and the general aura of fear that surrounds our misunderstood 8 legged friends. I will be doing a general article a bit later about the wonders of the spider world in an attempt to educate and amaze, and i am working on a scientific response to the ignorance surrounding Phoneutria in particular with a learned acquaintance, Dr Stuart Longhorn, but for now I find myself forced to respond to more outlandish journalism.

Segestria florentina, - Authors own photo. 

So, I have set the record straight regarding Segestria florentina, which I am extremely peeved that I cannot actually find (update:I finally found one!) let’s have a go at one of the urban legends. Brazilian Wandering Spiders found in bunches of bananas. For many years now people have been reporting finding spiders in imports of fruit. (I might add I have not been fortunate enough to do so no matter how many grapes and bananas I buy!) and this certainly is possible. Although many importers, particularly those for the larger supermarkets) endeavour to kill off anything that might be lurking within by chilling the fruit a lot of invertebrates can survive this and just slow down, becoming more active when they warm up again. So we have established that stowaways are certainly possible on imported exotic fruit but how likely is it to be the Infamous Brazilian Wandering Spider?

Well lets start by looking at the beastie itself. Firstly, Brazilian wandering spider is kind of a misnomer as there are a great deal many arachnids that would fall under that description. The Family Ctenidae contains many sub genus of which individuals are often misidentified as being the most venomous spider on the planet. Put bluntly not every spider with red chelicerae is our deadly arachnid. There are a great many benign species that have that characteristic, and also share a few others with the critter in question. The ones that are dangerous are Phoneutria (Greek for Murderess) and even then not all eight species of the genus have the same level of toxicity in their venom. Indeed it is P.fera and P.nigriventer that have the title of most Venomous spider in their pedipalps.

I'm going to impart a little bit of fact about the venom of Phoneutria nigriventer to you now. It is NASTY, it has caused fatalities and it is highly toxic. Thankfully there is an effective antivenin available and deaths lately have been few and far between. Phoneutria venom can cause paralysis and asphyxiation/cardiac arrest if left untreated. It also has an interesting side effect of sometimes causing painful erections that can last hours. Unfortunately it can also destroy the tissue at the base of the penis causing permanent impotence so its not all great. Nonetheless components of the venom are being actively researched for a treatment for impotence. So yes it is lethal (or at the very least unpleasant) stuff but how often do people die from it? Well not all that often at all as it happens (a whopping 14 since 1926!).

Phoneutria fera -  (photo by Stanislav Macík from Czech Arachnological Society - European Arachnology)

There are a number of reasons for this. One is that not every bite will be envenomed. Venom is precious to a spider, it will not waste it on something it has no chance of eating. Therefore they have the option of delivering a ‘dry’ bite in which little or no venom is delivered. This as you might imagine will cause proportionally less damage than a fully envenomed bite that has delivered a full load (such as Atrax robustus the Sydney Funnel Web spider is known for). Add to this the rather nomadic nature of the spider. Although they are becoming a more regular sight in Brazilian cities (certainly in the case of P.nigriventer) bites are still rare and mainly occur when the spider is disturbed and has no chance to throw its rather spectacular threat display. To my knowledge there has been only one recorded bite in Britain and that was non fatal though it did take the victim a week in hospital to recover. So don’t be scared of bananas the odds of discovering a spider in them is remote and the chances of that being Phoneutria are probably less than the chances of successfully navigating an asteroid field (3720 to 1 in case you were wondering )

BUT what about eggs on Bananas? I refer you to the recent newspaper stories where a housewife found some white fuzzy eggsacs on her bananas, now these stories seem to have been edited recently (for a start they actually bear pictures of an actual Phoneutria now) and the pest control companies are quoted as saying that it was a ‘tropical species’ (though the Headlines still dramatically proclaim ‘Worlds deadliest spider found in bananas!’) I'll not bother doing a great deal of debunking here. The photo that my friend Dr Stuart Longhorn has mocked up does a more than ample job of showing why its NOT Phoneutria eggs on bananas.

See that? A far cry from the small specks of mould that the ‘victim’ reported. Suffice to say if you had any kind of Phoneutria egg sac on your 'nanas you’d smeggin well notice. Huntsmen of various descriptions do turn up in imported fruit and there is a Millennium Falcon in an asteroid fields chance that it could be a Phoneutria species (as did actually happen recently – no one was harmed) but more often than not it will be a relatively benign huntsman that has inadvertently hitched a lift to our stores/shores. So whilst caution is advised hysteria certainly is not required.

You realize this article has taken nearly three weeks (and about 5 months to finish!) to write? Not because of writers block or any other issues on my part but simply because we don’t seem to be able to go any more than a few days without another daft spider story in the press.

I'll pay them all lip service or we will be here for an age:

Spider builds 6 foot web across garage! No it didn't you used a forced perspective photo to make it look that way and even compounded it by confirming that the spider in question is only 1.5 inches making your claim of the web’s size impossible as there is no way the spider fits into that webs diameter 48 times.

False widow causes woman to have thumb amputated! No it didn't necrotizing fasciitis did. It’s a rather nasty infection that as its name suggest causes necrosis or rotting of the flesh. You can get it from any open wound and the best defence is to keep the wound sterile. I freely admit it could be a spider that bit her that carried the infection but she could have got a paper cut and suffered the same fate. Just unfortunate.

Dead spider in kettle kills family of 6 in Africa! My word, how ridiculous! Surely I don’t even need to explain this one! Boiling a spider may well make your tea not taste nice but it wont kill you, it doesn’t matter how venomous it is. Besides at boiling te,peratures the venom would actually become LESS effective as some of the enzymes break down, as has been studied with Phoneutria venom.

A story so stupid it even makes spiders face palm

Puppy Sized spider found in Brazil. This is true, I have several. How big is a puppy though? Well when it is born, not very big. And if it is a Chihuahua also not very big! Its all a case of perspective. For the record Theraposa blondi and its close relative stirmi have been known about for over a hundred of years and can reach a whopping 12 inches in leg span. Therefore if the puppy is 12” or less then yes the spider is puppy sized. Moving on…..

Theraposa strimi, the author's own spider - 9 inch legspan

Pamphobeteus antinous - authors own spider. 10" legspan

Spider burrows into mans stomach: The recent (well it was in October) story goes that a an individual returning from a tropical destination went to the doctors with a complaint of pain in his stomach and an interesting mark on his torso. Upon investigation it was discovered that a creature had burrowed into his skin leaving a long track mark on his body. Upon extraction this creature was apparently a spider. Note, no pictures of the culprit are available.

It is very unlikely that this is a spider. Although they don't have lungs that work the same way as ours a spider still requires air, now some spiders are known for burrowing and it is no secret that they do prefer enclosed spaces. Some other parasite or interloper certainly but i very much doubt a spider would be capabe of what is seen here. It should also be noted that not one single peice of corroborating information is presented, The only information was that the creature was the size of a match head. If you ask me it sounds a lot like a mite or tick which ARE known for burrowing into skin.

Spider bite causes ebola in uk housewife! Ok I made that one up but its no less outlandish than many of the other headlines….

I have lost time of the amount of times i have said this but here we go again...

spiders are NOT out to get you!. IF spiders felt the same way about us as so many of us do about them then I have no doubt that we would be in some kind of danger. But they don’t. Spiders want to be left alone, they want to eat and breed and go about their spidery little lives and that is about it. The same as most of the other life forms on this planet. It is us Homo Sapiens that seem to have the adjustment issue.

Spiders really are wonderful amazing and interesting creatures that deserve our respect and understanding. I’ll be endeavouring to show this in a series of articles that i am working on (which wont take as long as this one to publish!) In the meantime Dr Longhorn and I have some work to do regarding the misconception around Banana spiders. Watch out journalists we are coming for you with research and facts, we've had enough of your bullshit and your lies….