Brazilian Wandering Spiders found in bananas at UK supermarket?

[DDM]

I posted a couple of years back about a similar incident that took place at a WalMart in Wisconsin that I had shopped at in the past. I opened up my homepage today to see this article:

http://now.msn.com/brazilian-wandering-spiders-found-in-bananas-bought-at-sainsburys

I'm going to guess that this happens quite frequently and goes unreported. My mother used to work in a local grocery store for a couple of years in our small town of 2,000 people, and on several occasions there were widows in the crates the grape shipments came in. If that happens in our small town, I can only imagine how often it happens worldwide. Of course, these things are generally found before they make their way to the homes of customers and are just a minor inconvenience.

Back to the story in question,

I'm not too familiar with the habits of Phoneutria, but the details in the story don't make a lot of sense to me. What is the verdict on this one? Some other spider? Shoddy reporting not giving an accurate description of the incident?

I think the supermarket handled it a lot better than others have in the past. They gave a coupon to the family and put them up in a hotel while their home was fumigated.

 

[Deroplatys]

Probably BS.
In the uk for the last few weeks there has been mass hysteria of "deadly" false widows, this countries pathetic.
The pest controllers only have to make up some dumbass story and suddenly some brainless family has to pay to have their house fumigated, lucky that...

 

[JayDangerVL]

I was wondering about this myself... I didn't really read the article though. I was worried that it would just tick me off. I don't know much about Brazilian Wandering Spiders though--are they really terribly dangerous? Or was this news team just looking for another opportunity to strike terror into the hearts of the common crowd?

 

[Stefan2209]

... so this "news story" is for real?!

I read an article about it in a german weekly magazine last tuesday but thought it'd be made up by (idiotic) german media...

The whole thing is completely BS - no guessing.

The article the OP posted the link to doesn't even show a member of the genus Phoneutria, its a Cupiennius infact.

I'll offer some more details tomorrow, if i feel like it - to keep those who may be interested in such issues as well entertained as also informed, however:

http://www.entsoc.org/PDF/Pubs/Periodicals/AE/AE-2008/Summer/Vetter.pdf

Take care,

Stefan

 

[DDM]

In searching the news story on different websites, most articles are using that picture. I'm guessing somebody picked a random Google Images result and the rest ran with it.

I had seen some articles about the Steatoda panic going on across the pond and I definitely think this is a byproduct of the mass hysteria.

@Stefan - I've read a lot of your posts in the last few years and you seem to be one of the foremost experts on Phoneutria on this site, so I've got to ask:

The 2011 incident that I mentioned in the first post - I never did see any update as to whether or not the spider was accurately identified. I don't know the first thing about telling apart wandering spiders, and the closest I can come is noticing the reddish chelicerae, which is about as accurate an identifier as using a violin shape to identify a brown recluse.

http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/Woman-Find-120786339.html

Any idea on the ID of this spider?

Thanks

 

[BobGrill]

I've read about them being accidentally imported over her in the U.S. Not sure how true it is, but I don't think it's that far fetched, these things do happen from time to time.

 

[Stefan2209]

Any idea on the ID of this spider?

Hi DDM,

thank you for your kind words and especially for providing that link!

I don't consider myself as any kind of "expert" about Phoneutria, i have since long a deep affection to the genus and was able to gain some knowledge and experience through captive care, breeding and observing, most of my knowledge, though, is 2. hand and results from the (to my perception) "real" experts, that work professional on the genus or even family and who have sometimes been kind enough to let me take a peek about their shoulders.

Due to medical problems i'm not able to actively "work" with the genus since some years. - One interest remains with me, though, which is "accidentally importing" of suspected Phoneutria spec. through commercial cargo. I wasn't aware of that linked 2011 news, so thank you for that.

In this regard, your cited question is easy to be answered:

It's Cupiennius chiapanensis

I don't eat bananas too often, i have to admit. I know that the brand "Chiquita" (spelling?) has a blue/yellow label on their bananas. The label in the picture is rather green: what is this? Is it "Del Monte", does anyone know?
I find this interesting because due to the origin of the fruits, some species can immediately get excluded...
(Not, that this would be necessessary in this case.)

@ Bob

Of course, spiders do get imported quite frequently with commercial cargo (be it fruits or also domestical plants) "even today" - no doubts. The same is true for insects.
The interest not only with me, but especially with public news media, though, rises as soon as a potential "dangerous" species gets involved. However, such occurences are to my very best knowledge extremely rare.

Since you are located in the US i want to encourage you to send any indicators you may find about such a case to Rick Vetter - i think he will be very interested in such and do his very best to track down the evidence wether it was indeed a "dangerous" arachnid or maybe not.

Take care,

Stefan

 

[Hanska]

Don't know should I cry or should I laugh.
Ok, so a woman finds an eggsac while eating that banana, right? So how blind is this woman? I mean I'm no expert but I have an image that Phoneutrias aren't actually itsy-bitsy so wouldn't their eggsacs be quite noticable on the side of a banana?
And the ID is made from a picture (anyone who has photographed spiders know probably not a very good one) of spiderling(s) by someone probably not an arachnologist whos business benefits from peoples fear of (dangerous) spiders.
So no, no fearmongering here.

But atleast now we know that there are evil murder spiders lurking in our food. No one is safe, everybody is going to die.

 

[Smokehound714]

I dont like using the term "harmless"..

Say a spider that forgot to wash her chelicerae, then bites ya, and she had a healthy population of nasty nasty bacteria on them- You could develop a life-threatening infection!

 

[Tarantula_Hawk]

Wow, this BS article really got out of hand and is being shown around all of Europe and now US.
"Experts" "identified" the spiderlings as Phoneutria.. the same guys that were responsible for fumigating the house. Yep sounds pretty obvious.
Considering the structure of the eggsac and the general appearance of the spiderlings, i'd say its pretty far from being a Phoneutria...

No offense to peeps from the UK, but as Deroplatys said, from this journalistic point of view the country is so embarassing and pathetic that it's not even funny anymore. Unfortunately i ended up reading several of the recent idiotic articles regarding S. nobilis. At first it was fun, but it got old really fast. I use to think that our journalists (Italy) were among the worst, but i feel relieved now. So much sensationalist crap about S. nobilis; a whole school evacuated due to the presence of S. grossa.. I wonder what would happen if actual dangerous stuff, like our mediterranean Loxosceles rufscens, was present in the UK.
For anyone who wants to laugh/cry : http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/341071/False-widow-spider-on-rampage-in-Britain

 

[Hanska]

Wow! "Flesh-eating false widow spiders MULTIPLY"
That's just... mmmm... WHAT?
I guess in a few months they'll spit acid, breath fire or maybe have laser cannons for eyes.

EDIT: Did some surfing there and found an article named "Invasion of the killer mutant rats". That's just hilarious.

 

[gloost]

At the risk of being banished, I can only comment that the British national pastimes are being frightened and self-righteously indignant. And now, being politically correct to the point of absolute ridicule, they are unable to discriminate against immigrants or deviants, so now transfer their fear of the proverbial 'other' onto arthropods....oh... and paedophiles...they discover new species every week, but mostly fossils though....

 

[JayDangerVL]

Wow! "Flesh-eating false widow spiders MULTIPLY"
That's just... mmmm... WHAT?
I guess in a few months they'll spit acid, breath fire or maybe have laser cannons for eyes.

Anyone know where I can get one of those? Dangerous or not, that'd be freaking sweet.