Are stories about the false widow spider... false?
The spider has created quite the reputation for itself in Britain, according to the BBC. This fall - the most conducive season to the venomous arachnid - a soccer player was bitten and had to have emergency surgery to counteract the swelling. Just last week, a senior citizen feared he'd lose his foot after his encounter with the spider known to scientists as Steatoda nobilis.
USA Today reported a school in Gloucestershire, England shut down on Wednesday because of an infestation of false widows. Experts have not yet commented on the school closing, but several noted scientists have refuted the other media reports gaining attention. They contend the false widow isn't aggressive to humans, attacks are rare, and bites aren't as serious as media members have led people to believe.
"There have been very few confirmed incidences of bites from Steatoda nobilis, although adult female false widow spiders are certainly capable of biting humans if handled without due care - the smaller males are not known to cause bites," said Dr. John Tweddle from the life sciences department at the Natural History Museum, London. "It is not an aggressive species towards humans and is most likely to bite when accidentally prodded or squashed, or trapped in clothing."
No one has officially ever died from a false widow bite, according to the BBC.
Aided by climate change, false widow populations have gradually risen in England - not an "influx" but an increase in present numbers, according to Tweedle. They aren't native to Britain, but likely arrived in crates from the Canaray Islands sometime in the late 1800s.
The symptoms of a false widow bite depend on the amount of venom injected and include severe swelling, feelings of numbness, sensations of burning, and pain in the chest, according to the BBC.
Though the symptoms sound serious, most bites are defensive and thus may not transfer as much venom, according to Mark Champion from the Wildlife Trust.
"The bite that it gives is mainly defensive, so it's not coming out to get you, it's not a horror movie," he told BBC Breakfast.
Champion adds people worry too much about the intense swelling, which can grow to the size of a tennis ball.
Sara Goodacre from the University of Nottingham's Spider Lab believes the media may have falsely attributed recent spider attacks to the false widow and may have neglected other factors.
"That's what you would need to do with a venom that's slowly breaking down the tissue, which some snake and spider venoms do - but not the false widow," she said in response to the "footballer" who underwent surgery.
"People aren't always reporting the same consistent symptoms. It's important to work out if we are talking about the same thing, or whether it's an allergy where the symptoms depends on the person that's bitten," she said. "This [false widow's] neurotoxin doesn't seem to do that. At best it's very unclear, at worst it's scaremongering."
