5 ms·
Not that that long ago (10 years? 15 years? Phones with camera were already common), a very rare brazilian wandering spider bit someone in a supermarket in the
by TacticalCoder 4y ago
Not that that long ago (10 years? 15 years? Phones with camera were already common), a very rare brazilian wandering spider bit someone in a supermarket in the UK. It then looked ultra aggressive, which is uncommon for spiders, so someone took a picture with its phone.
If I remember correctly it's thanks to showing the picture to the doctor, which had it sent to a zoo (!), that they realized how dangerous it was and thankfully another zoo (?) had the serum.
My memory is fussy but it happened, in the UK.
Turns out the spider traveled all the way from Brazil into... Bananas.
Another common name for the brazilian wandering spider is the "banana spider" : )
Too lazy too google it so I posted what I remember ; )
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneutria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneutria
- Rebelgecko 4y agoFrom the wiki article, "Phoneutria venom is potentially medically significant to humans". I feel like that sentence gives very little actual information while giving readers' imaginations the opportunity to run amok.
- TacticalCoder 4y agoOh it's seriously bad I think: "The spider's name means "murderess" in Greek, which is appropriate for the deadly arachnid. And it's no wonder why — it's one of the most venomous spiders on Earth. Its bite, which delivers neurotoxic venom, can be deadly to humans, especially children, although antivenom makes death unlikely." https://www.livescience.com/41591-brazilian-wandering-spiders.html https://www.livescience.com/41591-brazilian-wandering-spider...
- undersuit 4y agoAnd the citation points to a news article that doesn't even make the claim.
- zamnos 4y agoIs this it? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/4489033.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/4489033....
- silisili 4y agoWhen we were kids, my brother worked produce at a Winn Dixie. He'd told us more than once about finding giant spiders in the banana boxes, so I'm guessing it's not an ultra rare occurrence.
- autoexec 4y agoHighly Deadly Black Tarantula is well documented, but I'm surprised it's still an issue for modern grocery store employees as opposed to 1950s banana boat workers
- e28eta 4y agoHow many insecticides are you allowed to spray on the bananas between when they’re picked and when they’re delivered to the grocery store? Modern sensibilities may have increased the likelihood.
- pvaldes 4y agoPhoneutria can be suspected or discarded looking at its face. Eyes arranged in a square
- Dalewyn 4y ago>It then looked ultra aggressive, which is uncommon for spiders, so someone took a picture with its phone. Spiders carried phones back then? And lent it to a human? By the gods.
- jolmg 4y agoIt might be a preference to use it/its as gender-neutral pronouns instead of singular they/their. Kind of wonder how common that is nowadays, since traditionally I would think people could take it as an insult where they're being referred to as a thing less than human. Tone can generally disambiguate intentions, though.
- andrewflnr 4y agoI've never encountered it on purpose. Even as a deliberate insult it's more likely to cause confusion than the desired effect.
- jolmg 4y agoYes, I didn't mean as a popular insult, but you just wouldn't use it on a person, say 20 years ago, because it was used exclusively to refer to things and animals.
- andrewflnr 4y agoRight, I'm saying it still is used (approximately[0]) exclusively for things and animals. I only brought up insults as an extreme case that highlights the common case. For people you still use "they" etc[0]. [0] This kind of thing is never absolute. We can surely find counterexamples if we dig hard enough, but rarely enough that we can ignore them for discussions like this.
- makeset 4y agoYes. It's named Phoneutria because it always carries a phone.
- jcadam 4y agoAlways check a bunch of bananas before putting it in your cart.
- smegger001 4y agohaving worked in grocery store, we once found scorpion in a box bananas we were stocking. no one was stung fortunately. It did freak out one arachnophobic coworker of mine though.