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[Black Sheep]

Have seen increasing info on this spider, elsewhere. But today, our safety managers have sent this warning to the engineers. Hardly on a par with Oz, but thought it worth bringing to our forum members attention. 



Body size
Female to 15 mm; male to 10 mm.

Appearance
Rotund, brown with pale markings. Apart from colour, differs from Latrodectus (Black widow spiders) in
having teeth on the chelicerae. Only female (photo) bites.

Habitat, range and season
Walls, fences, and the bark of trees. Originally a native of southern Europe as far east as Georgia.
Adults occur from June to November.

Web
Buildings and fences. Originally a native of the Canary Islands and Madeira; now established in the
southern and eastern coastal region of England and inland in Surrey.

First recorded in the UK
1879. Not considered to be established until the 1980's (Jones, 1987).

Bite reports
The bite itself is not usually felt but, within a short space of time, a local burning sensation is followed
by radiating pain (“far more severe than a bee or wasp sting”, Warrell et al., 1991).
"Sudden onset of intense pain, radiating across thigh. Lasted 20 minutes with some swelling and a
developing weal."

"Bitten on left hand; within 3/4 hour developed swelling of palm including thumb and fingers with tingling
in all fingers. Swelling on left side of face with tingling over face. Two small puncture wounds in the
region of the swelling, surrounded by local erythema with small bluish tinge a few hours later."

"Bite on arm (area red) immediate pain. Spread to chest - still stiff 48 hours later."

"Burning sensation on the right side of ribs. Increased in intensity, like being scalded, stabbing pains
spread first to armpit then down right arm. Also flu-like symptoms, aches, sweats, fatigue, perspiring,
cold & shaky, sick & giddy (all in first 10 minutes). Face and right arm went purplish and slightly puffy.
Bite mark raised with red area c. 5 or 6cm. After one hour, responded to Piriton but felt unwell for 3
days."

"Bitten on the shoulder. Initially the top of my arm ached, then felt itchy. Ten minutes later my armpit
became numb. The skin was hot and sticky and looked wrinkled. The tenderness and itchiness lasted
for some days" (later said to be infected).

Frequency of bites
Increasing as the species spreads in the south and east of England.

[roseway]

Moved here because it's not to do with technology.

Still interesting and useful, so thanks for the information.

[Ronski]

We've had one spotted in Margate recently, just a few miles from where I live, also I think some have been found in Dover, not far away either.

I've always told my daughters we don't have dangerous spiders in this country, seems like we do.

[burakkucat]

Web
Buildings and fences. Originally a native of the Canary Islands and Madeira; now established in the
southern and eastern coastal region of England and inland in Surrey.

I have underlined three words that Walter will find interesting. Perhaps that is the reason why Beattie is so reluctant to perform external plant remedial work in Ewhurst, Surrey? 

[guest]

We've had dozens of them in our garden for 5+ years now (I think we first saw them in 2007). Probably came back from the Canaries in the luggage while "pregnant".

I've been bitten once although I didn't know at the time, was just a mild sting although it itched a lot later.

They're quite funny - they rear up on their back legs and wave the front legs around when they feel threatened but that's usually when they're pregnant (if that's the right way to describe the egg sac). The rest of the time they're only interested in getting away from you ASAP.

You can tell if you've got them as their webs aren't the nice neat two dimensional orb-type we're used to, they're more like "proper" cobwebs - three dimensional and tangled with a sort of funnel at one end, usually going into a corner of a window/whatever. The webs aren't that sticky either.

[tickmike]

A professor of Biology at Derby uni has said there is more chance of choking on a peanut than having any problems from these spiders.   

[roseway]

I suspect that the professor is right. Of course we only hear about the very small number of cases in which someone has had a bad reaction to the bite, and not about the ones who were bitten and hardly noticed.

[Black Sheep]

Absolutely right, Eric. Just as with broadband, we only ever hear of the tales of woe.