Flushing one venomous spider down the toilet in the heat of her panic, she found a second deadly surprise waiting in an unsuspecting bunch of grapes she planned to serve to her children
A horrified mum-of-two discovered a clutch of hatching black widow eggs in a bunch of grapes she was about to serve to her family.
Brynhildur Helgadott found the deadly black widow spider, equipped with its deadly venom and next to her unborn young, as she was preparing for a family dinner.
Brynhildur, from Reykjavik, Iceland, told local media: “I was cooking the food and I was going to have grapes with the salad.
“I’m not very good at washing fruit in general, so I hadn’t washed them. Then I pick up one of the stalks and a completely white spider falls out.”
However, astonished, she discovered a second venomous insect on the evening of September 12, nesting in a web in the fruit with the brood of eggs ready to hatch.
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Brynhildur flushed the spider, which turned out to be the harmless male mate, down the sink but then she spotted its deadly partner. She said: “It had settled in nicely, clearly had eggs, and there was a web spun between the grapes, forming a cosy nest. So, I was pretty shocked when I saw it.
In moment of panic, she called out to her husband for help as she happened upon the surprise creepy crawly. She said: ”I yelled to my husband, ‘There’s a black widow in the grapes!’ Needless to say, I was quite startled.”
She added: “We have two small children at home, and it really hit me that we had a venomous spider in the house.” The mum of two explained the whole ordeal was somewhat of a rollercoaster of emotions, saying, “We laughed about it but were also stressed. I think it was a mix of emotions.”
The spider, with its distinctive black widow red dot marking on its back, was trapped in a food container and then collected by city pest experts who took it to a local zoo.
Icelandic Institute of Natural History scientists later declared it to be a northern black widow (Latrodectus variolus). Its bite contains powerful neurotoxins that cause agonising muscle pain, vomiting and stomach cramps and can be deadly to children and old people.
The northern black widow spider is typically found throughout the eastern US and southern Canada. In June a new way of treating potentially deadly black widow spider bites with fewer side-effects was developed.
Human antibodies have been engineered by scientists to neutralise the arachnid’s toxin. The breakthrough potentially reduces the need for antibodies derived from horses to treat diseases caused by spider bites. There are several types of widow spiders, including black, red, and brown varieties in North and South America, the Australian redback spider, and several button spider species that inhabit South Africa.
In Europe, Latrodectus tredecimguttatus the European black widow inhabits the Mediterranean region. But they have been expanding their habitat in recent times due to climate change, say scientists. They explained that widow spiders’ bites can cause latrodectism, a disease where the spider’s venom – a neurotoxin known as alpha-latrotoxin – attacks the nervous system and causes symptoms including severe pain, high blood pressure, headache and nausea.