The news from Britain lately is about the invasion of the False Widow Spider, a deadly spider that is rapidly spreading all across Great Britain and has even led to some school closures (students: don't get any ideas!).
Image from Wikimedia Commons by Andre Karwarth
The problem with this?
1. False Widow Spiders are not poisonous.
2. False Widow Spiders are not new to Great Britain
3. False Widow Spiders are not spreading like crazy.
Bug Girl explains:
"It’s difficult to convey why this is so incredibly silly without using a lot of four letter words, arm waving, and spittle. These spiders are NOT that dangerous. Headlines have used words like “rampaging killer spiders” and “flesh-eating,” but those claims are ridiculous and false.
These little spiders are related to black widows, but other than genetics and web structure, that’s about the end of the resemblance. They do not have venom that dissolves your flesh. They are not “flesh eating,” unless you are a fly or a cricket. They can’t “kill humans with a single bite!“; and there is NO record of their ever having killed anyone in the UK (or elsewhere, best as I can tell)."
Here's the deal. Spiders seldom bite people and very, very few of them can actually cause any harm to humans. Mostly they are beneficial; they eat insects.
My biggest problem with spiders? When they leave they don't clean up after themselves and I end up with cobwebs in the basement that I have to go clean up. Slobs.
What I learned from this post is, "Aaaaaahhhh! Rampaging killer spiders!"
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