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BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK
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BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK |
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Subject: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: JohnInKansas Date: 11 Oct 13 - 12:55 AM UK shudders as venomous spider creeps across Britain Marc Lallanilla LiveScience 10 October 2013 There aren't many things that can bring a quiver to a Briton's stiff upper lip, but a venomous arachnid named the "false widow spider" seems to be giving the entire country a case of the heebie-jeebies. The BBC reports that an amateur soccer player named Steve Harris has been sidelined indefinitely due to a bite from a false widow. The Daily Mail described in lurid detail how a healthy 31-year-old man collapsed on the floor of a Toys "R" Us in Southampton the day after being bitten 10 times on the neck by one of the notorious crawlers. Not to be outdone, a headline in the Daily Star trumpets, "False widow spider on rampage in Britain." The article adds the unlikely news that the arachnid "can kill humans with a single bite." But exactly how fearsome is the false widow — and is the British press making a monster out of an ordinary garden bug? A few facts may be in order: The false widow spider (Steatoda nobilis) is a native of Spain's Canary Islands, and is widely believed to have spread to Europe and the British Isles through shipments of bananas. Its name comes from a superficial resemblance to the black widow spider, which has a much more venomous bite. The largest of false widows are no more than a half inch (13 millimeters) across, and both males and females have pale marbled markings on their abdomens that some observers have called a "skull mark." And while a bite from a false widow can cause pain and swelling — and a handful of people may suffer an allergic reaction — the venom is widely believed by experts to be less harmful than a bee sting. "For almost everyone, the effect of spider bite in this country is an itchy lump for a day or so at worst," said Matthew Chatfield on his blog Naturenet. "So actually, there's almost no evidence of Steatoda nobilis or any other U.K. spider causing anything more than temporary discomfort to anyone," Chatfield noted, adding, "Steatoda may well be the U.K.'s most dangerous spider, but that position is only slightly more odious than being the U.K.'s most dangerous kitten." Stuart Hine, an entomologist at London's Natural History Museum, also weighed in on Chatfield's Naturenet blog: "Yes, this story makes its annual appearance, and I fully expect to cover it once a year for the next decade," Hine wrote. "Generally speaking, the effects of bites … are paltry, though shocking for the victim." One thing that all parties agree on, however, is the spread of the false widow spider throughout Great Britain, largely due to a warming climate. "Interestingly, we never recorded this species as an inquiry pre-1999, and numbers have risen each year since," Hine wrote on Naturenet. Environmentalist Matt Shardlow of the conservation group Buglife told the Star, "The false widow has long been prevalent across much of the southwest because of the milder temperatures. They come from warm countries and are usually killed off by our cold weather. But climate change may have helped." Despite the spread of the false widow spiders, most experts are quick to remind people that, despite the creatures' nefarious reputation, spiders are an important part of the natural world, and help to control insect pest populations. "Spiders are of great environmental importance, and are really rather beautiful and very interesting," Hine wrote. ************** OK, it's not really news, but at least it's not politics or religion. !!!! Kind of a cute little bug. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 11 Oct 13 - 10:19 AM Oh John you horrible thing! It's bad enough at this season to have all the big, hairy outdoors spiders heading into the house for a warm-up (I have to check the bedroom every night before I can get into bed) without this latest terror! I loathe and detest spiders, and I know it's stupid and cruel but I can't abide them and they have to die if in the house. Now you tell us we have this little beast biting us. At least it's quite distinctive with it's white markings. Oh Lord, nightmares for weeks to come! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Rapparee Date: 11 Oct 13 - 10:49 AM My friend, the late Roy Brocksmith, was in the movie "Arachnophobia." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Pete Jennings Date: 11 Oct 13 - 12:08 PM How many legs did he have? :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 11 Oct 13 - 10:44 PM "The Daily Mail described in lurid detail how a healthy 31-year-old man collapsed on the floor of a Toys "R" Us in Southampton the day after being bitten 10 times on the neck by one of the notorious crawlers." Did they explain why he allowed it to bite him ten times? More facts are needed. There are a few people who can be endangered by insects which don't really bother other people. My neighbor lady would go into dangerous anaphylactic shock if stung by a bee. Here in the Midwest we have a spider called the brown recluse which can cause some people to develop a terrible sore at the bite location, while other people simply develop a small welt. Nonetheless, if I were in Europe, I would put this spider on my list of things not to worry about. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: JohnInKansas Date: 12 Oct 13 - 01:09 AM One of the interesting things in the report posted is the implied "fact" (?) that the UK has no spiders that are particularly dangerous (except for those who may have allergic reactions to some). I have seen references to this "factoid(?)" previously, but never with sufficient detail to know how reliable the claim might be. Good historical records show suffient presence of fleas and body lice there (?) but those of us elsewhere know very little about the real exposures one should be concerned with. Another item perhaps meriting comment could be the vast difference between the "news reports" and comments by those who claim to be more "authoritative." Most of us elsewhere have trouble recognizing which media are useful in our own places, and which are the real trash. Here, if it's in the rack by the checkout stand, no sane person would believe anything it says; but that standard isn't too accessible for those of us outside the UK with regard to news from there. Maybe the hype in the UK was just an attempt to keep up with the recent Chinese reports about the "Invasion by the Giant Hornets," where it's clear that they've got it backwards. Its the people invading hornet territory and not any change in the hornets that's the obvious cause there. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Dave Hanson Date: 12 Oct 13 - 04:03 AM I've got some enormous spiders in my house, we have an understanding, I don't bother them and they don't bother me, it works. Dave H |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: GUEST,Peter Laban Date: 12 Oct 13 - 05:27 AM To many it's hard to see why this is suddenly news, most articles acknowledge the spider in question has been found in the UK for over a century. False Widow Sipers, small, deadly and in the UK |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Leadfingers Date: 12 Oct 13 - 06:20 AM The Raft Spider , only found in East Anglia is our largest native spid but are not very common . The Common British House Spider is the fast moving Big Lad who likes to come home in the winter - Especially if there are wood piles local , as used to be alll round High Wycombe when my family lved there . Sit a big one on a saucer and he/she could well over hang the edges . I've never heard of one biting anybody . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Dave Hanson Date: 12 Oct 13 - 10:01 AM That's what Iv'e got at home, 100% harmless. Dave H |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Pete Jennings Date: 12 Oct 13 - 10:09 AM We've got a big bugger living in our living room at the moment. We take Dave H's approach - he isn't going to harm us. He's quite amusing actually, the way he scurries from shadows to shadows. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Acorn4 Date: 12 Oct 13 - 10:10 AM If they're in the "Daily Mail" then presumably they must hate Britain and will bite at every available opportunity. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 12 Oct 13 - 12:56 PM Anyone visiting Toys R Us is liable to collapse, given the noise levels and temper tantrums going on all around. I just can't control my phobia, it takes effect automatically without any thought on my part. I subscribe to two local wildlife organisations and am passionately interested in creatures and their protection. I can't abide silly women who screech at a mouse, rat, snake or bat. I could slap myself, but there it is. I believe the media exaggerate these stories to fill some column space. We've had scares before about 'processional caterpillars', tarantulas in bananas, giant hogweed etc. I'm much more scared of fools on the roads overtaking on our Norfolk country lanes and coming at me head-on at 60mph. (which happened yesterday morning.) My lovely husband is fearless and will kindly take outside any hairy spiders that make me scream. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: VirginiaTam Date: 12 Oct 13 - 02:18 PM Damned Cornish piskies are more toxic. I was attacked by one 3 times or 3 piskies on 3 different occassions all within 30 minutes time. Something grabbed my ankle in 100 year old fishermans cottage in Mevagissey we were staying in for week holiday. I felt it yank my ankle on the last but one stairstep leading into kitchen. I fell and hit my knee full on the storage heater. While making braskfast in same kitchen, I was mvoing hot frying pan from cooker to sink when for some reason I cannot fathom, the hot pan ended up along the inside of my right forearm. Still have the scar. While making apple cheese baps for our picnic lunch the knife jumped out of my hand and (I sear) in slow motion turned over and fell not onto the counter which it should have, but point down into my upper thigh. Thank god for thick denims. The first place we visited that day was a little gift shop in Mevagissey which explained pisky behaviour. When we got back to the house a small saucer of water and a bicuit for good measure was placed by the hearth. But even more toxic than arachnids and fairy creatures are tories - two legged creepies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Gurney Date: 12 Oct 13 - 03:41 PM Banana shipments blamed? A good many spiders are paratroopers, and fly about the world on the prevailing winds. As tiny babies, of course. From the Canaries there's nothing to stop them, but wouldn't the prevailing winds be more likely to take them to South America first? 'Work all night on a drink of rum, Daylight come an' me want to go home. Loading spiders till the daylight come, Daylight come an' me want to go home....' |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: JohnInKansas Date: 12 Oct 13 - 04:37 PM With our much larger land area, and more varied climate/environments, people in the US have quite a number of "dangerous" critters with which to contend. The true "black widow" spider is found almost everywhere, although more common in some places. At a motel in Colorado we noted "a few" visible ones, but when I sprayed a common household insecticide on the wood shingles on the the front porch it induced slightly more than 180 of them to appear (most of which I promptly squashed) and a half dozen or so were found inside. One exterminator once told us "there are no legal treatments that will kill spiders, but if you let me spray what I can use some of them may follow me out to the truck to beg for another shot." The toxicity of their venom varies a lot, so some are more dangerous than others; but there are treatments for their bites that result in few casualties. The brown recluse spider is possibly more common, over an even wider range, and can cause necrosis of the flesh around the bite that can sometimes be extensive. It's bite is rarely lethal, with prompt treatment; but it can cause significant disfiguring wounds even with extensive treatment, and recuperation can take a long time. There are numerous places where one can find large spiders collectively called "tarantulas," and they can inflict painful bites, but are not generally considered to be significantly dangerous. There is much mythology about these, but most of it is largely filk-lore. Found only in some areas, mostly desert or semi-arid, we have several varieties of scorpions. The most common (in areas where I've been) are a large brown or gray variety whose sting can be exceedingly painful but seldom life-threatening. A smaller "green" scorpion injects a nerve toxin that can be fatal in a fairly high percentage of cases. There are some varieties of centipedes and/or millipedes that can deposit a toxin just by crawling across the skin, but no reports of deaths are known so far as I know. Several varieties of rattlesnakes can be found in various parts of the country, and their bits can be fatal if not treated promptly. We also have the copperhead, quite similar to rattlesnakes, and the coral snake and water moccasin in some more limited areas. These last two are mostly confined to the southeastern part of the country. Fleas, ticks, and lice are about as common as elsewhere, with the ticks presenting the most significant hazard. Their bite can spread a number of "livestock diseases" with the most common being called "Rocky Mountain spotted fever" which can be difficult to diagnose and can (rarely?) be fatal. Wild bunny rabbits, although tasty, must be handled carefully as infection with tuleremia, a potentially disabling and sometimes fatal condition, is almost universal. The other parasites may transmit other infections, but none that I can think of are common enough to be very often reported. Armadillos have been moving northward, and are now quite common in a little less than half the country. They of course are known carriers of Hanson's disease (formerly called leprosy) and occasional reports of human infection have surfaced. It has been reported that the UK has no known incidence of rabies, but here almost any warm-blooded animal one doesn't know on a personal basis must be "suspect until proven innocent." Nothing much to really worry about, but it helps to know what the hazards are, especially when going into unfamiliar places. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 12 Oct 13 - 05:45 PM I'm a bit mad really, as I have very little fear of poisonous creatures, having encountered quite a few in my travels in the tropics. I like snakes; to me they're beautiful (although I don't go up and stroke them!) and I also admire scorpions, such strange and primitive things. It's not the bite of this false widow spider I'd fear, just the look of it. I like creatures to be left in peace to live their lives. In general they want to leave us alone too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: JohnInKansas Date: 13 Oct 13 - 09:47 AM Our knowledge of scorpions, at least in the US, was significantly advanced by the fairly recent discovery that they glow under "black light" (ultraviolet). Since they're largely nocturnal, investigators before that discovery had to bumble around in the dark to study them, and the scorpions were quite good at sneaking up on campers and hikers who didn't see them soon enough. Since UV light is invisible to us, one needs a few scorpions to tell whether their light is working so that they'll know whether they'll be able to see the scorpions (???) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 13 Oct 13 - 01:35 PM In W Africa, scorpions had a nasty habit of snuggling into your shoes at night. Always tip out your shoes in the morning before wearing them! Interesting about the UV light, John. I didn't know that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: JohnInKansas Date: 13 Oct 13 - 02:26 PM The glow-in-the-dark characteristic of scorpions was discovered perhaps a decade or a little more ago. So far as I've seen reported, it's a feature of all scorpions but it's been used (or at least reported) most in the SW US for studies of our varieties. A benefit of using UV light is that scorpions can be seen from a distance sufficient that they're not disturbed (much) by the observers, so one has a good chance of seeing what "business as usual" for a scorpion might be. This is really a lot more interesting than knowing more than a little about how they act when you make them made at you. Some of the centipedes are another good reason for shaking out your boots in the morning. Ones here can inflict a lot of pain, but some elsewhere are reported as potentially lethal. Historically, there's not much of anything that's done more damage (to humans) that the common flea (of several varieties); but with most of those people just scratch and forget it until the plague (or whatever) shows itself - and then wonder where it came from. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 13 Oct 13 - 04:59 PM Yes, John, sometimes it seems the smaller the beastie the nastier it can be for us humans. I was bitten by a few bedbugs in Morocco as a young 'backpacker'. One or two of the bites got infected and I was quite ill with fever. Actually, I don't believe than any arachnid is a vector for disease. It's just a straightforward venom thing. I've seen some massive spiders in Africa, I mean dinnerplates with very hairy legs. They eat birds and their bite is serious, as they have a tendency to jump on you. But I wasn't thinking about their bites, I was doing a four-minute mile screaming like a lunatic. I expect the spiders got a terrible fright too! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: Gurney Date: 13 Oct 13 - 10:21 PM We do have a couple of poisonous spiders here in NZ. One, the Katipo, looks a little like a Black Widow and is close enough to interbreed, I believe. The other is an import, from Oz I'm told, called the Whitetail spider. The poison of the whitetail varies a lot, because it is a predator on other spiders, and it depends on which other spiders it has been eating. As I understand it, all spiders are poisonous, but most of them can't bite through human skin. Fortunately. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Invasion of the Arachnids - UK From: GUEST Date: 14 Oct 13 - 04:57 AM You'll find this on You Tube it you are interested. Red Back on the Toilet Seat sung by: Slim Dusty There was a redback on the toilet seat when I was there last night, I didn't see him in the dark, but boy, I feIt his bite. I jumped high up into the air and when I hit the ground, that crafty redback spider wasn't nowhere to be found. I rushed in to the missus, told her just where I'd been bit she grabbed the cut-throat razor blade, I nearly took a fit. I said, "Forget what's on your rnind and call the doctor please, 'cause I've got a feeling that your cure is worse than the disease." There was a redback on the toilet seat, when I was there last night, I didn't see him in the dark, but boy, I feIt his bite. And now I'm here in hospital, a sad and sorry plight, and I curse that redback spider on the toilet seat last night. I can't lie down, I can't sit up, I don't know what to do, the nurses think it's funny, that's not my point of view. I tell you, it's embarassing, and that's to say the least, 'cause I'm too sick to eat a bite, while the spider had a feast. + CHORUS And when I get back horne again I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll make that redback suffer for the pain I'm going through. I've had so many needles, that I'm looking like a sieve, and I promise you that spider hasn't very long to live. + CHORUS |
