Being bitten by a noble false widow in Mayo isn't particularly great
COUNTRYFILE
A FRIEND recently showed up with his hand badly swollen and resembling a much abused and over-inflated rubber glove.
It was red and angry, with two small puncture wounds on a purple knuckle the obvious epicentre of the problem.
“Spider bite,” he said, in response to my obvious question. I did my best to make a joke of the matter. “Is the spider alright?”
“It was living in my window for ages. I'd been feeding it flies all summer, and this is the thanks I get. I was asleep and felt something crawling on my face – I went to rub it off and this happened.”
He waved the offended appendage in my face. “How am I supposed to go to work with my hand resembling a boiled ham?”
I wondered what sort of spider might be capable of inflicting such a wound. “A flat false widow,” he told me.
“A flat false widow?”
“It's flat now.” A small amount of mild cursing followed.
In some parts of Ireland the noble false widow has become the dominant spider species. One reason is that other spiders form a large part of this creature's diet.
Armed with a particularly potent venom and very capable fangs, the noble widow is a far more efficient hunter than any of our native arachnids, many of which will find themselves on the menu as widow's choice.
But what is the false widow, where did it come from and how can we deal with such a venomous beast?
Steodata nobilis, to use the creature’s Latin name, is a medium sized poisonous spider endowed with jaws that can easily pierce human skin. In spider terms it is relatively long lived and easily capable of surviving five years. During this time, a female false widow might produce as many as 5,000 offspring, each of which will be capable of breeding in their first year.
It hails from the Canary Islands, from where it has spread over much of the inhabited world. The principal means of travel appears to be as a stowaway on luggage or in transported goods.
Like most other spiders, it eats all manner of insects. Rather disconcertingly, the false widow has also been observed dining on bats and small rodents.
Most of our native spider populations suffer during periods of cold weather. Not so this little beast! This one merrily goes about its business as long as temperatures stay above freezing.
This is the time that we are most likely to meet the false widow, for despite its ability to withstand moderate cold it does prefer to be warm.
During the summer it likely lived in your shed. Now it will be heading into your kitchen, where it will first be found in a rather untidy web. Over time the web will become more dense, and will ultimately be fitted with a tunnel from which the spider will emerge to hunt.
If you should be wondering about the identity of any spider guests on your own premises, a closer look might provide a few clues. Is the body black or brown with creamy markings on the back? Do these markings loosely resemble a skull? Look at the legs. Are they reddish brown, shiny, with sparse, stout hairs? Now look more closely at the jaws. Do they look as though they might inflict a nasty wound?
In the east of this country the false widow has become the most common spider species. It is likely the same will happen here. The number of people that actually get bitten is not great, but from what I hear, getting bitten isn’t particularly great either.