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| Black widow spider. Photo: Ian Waldie, Getty Images. |
Toronto resident Brett James was reaching into his refrigerator to grab his wife a snack when he found a black widow spider lurking under the bag of grapes he'd purchased at the local Whole Foods Market, the Toronto Star reports. He thinks the poisonous spider came in with the grapes.
"When I lifted the bag, the spider was underneath, just sitting on top of another bag in the refrigerator," James tells Slashfood. "I wasn't sure exactly what it was, and I had heard stories before, so something was in the back of my head that it could be serious."
He lifted the spider out of the fridge on a paper towel and put it in a plastic container. After poking around on the Internet, he said he identified it as a black widow, a spider whose venom can cause muscle cramps, tremor and chest pain.
An entomologist later identified it as one that had likely came from California in the grapes, James says.
"I wasn't shocked initially, but then when I realized what it was, there was a little bit of thankfulness that nobody had been bitten," he says. "I'm glad it was me that found it, because it might have been a little more traumatic if it had been anybody else."
Whole Foods tells Slashfood that while it's rare to find pests -- including poisonous spiders -- in its produce, it does happen. However, in the last 651,000 boxes of grapes that the company has distributed to its stores, spokeswoman Kate Kalotz says only three spiders were found.
"With any product that comes from the field, there is potential that it will have an attraction for any sort of insect," she says.
Tom Prentice, staff research associate at UC Riverside's Department of Entomology, tells Slashfood that finding a black widow in packaged food is not something consumers need to worry about.
"Anything is possible, but we get very few reports of widow spiders coming from food products or building webs in food products. They're not a stable environment for one thing. They ripen. They fall," Prentice says. "So it's not the kind of place that a widow would use for building a web."
"It's uncommon for them to be in food like that," he says. "People just freak when it comes to spiders, and they've got a very undeserved reputation."
James hopes to donate the spider to a zoo.
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10-08-2009 @2:14PM warmrain said... Not only is the depiction of the spider incorrect (the hourglass is NOT on the spider's back, but underneath) and it is not such a bright and easy to see shade of red. But the depiction is potential dangerous in that it leads people into beleiving unless they see a bright red hourglass on the back ot a spider it is not dangerous, not a Black Widow spider.
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10-08-2009 @2:26PM Mike said... I think that the spider that is in the picture is a red back spider from Australia which is the more venomous relative of the black widow spider. The black widow spider has the red mark on the belly and not on the back like the red back spider.
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10-08-2009 @2:36PM kimsmithcsw said... That picture is not a black widow. The second half of the body is teardrop shaped, not round. (In addition to the red hour-glass shape on the stomach.) My mom had the same thing happen to her. She took the grapes out of the fridge, washed them, put them in a bowl, and gave the to my stepfather without noticing it. He was the one who found the spider. My mom was quite upset at that point...
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10-08-2009 @2:36PM Glenda said... I live in the Palm Springs area and see black widows around my house every day. They are not as dangerous as depicted in this story; they can cause serious harm to the very young and very old; but for most of us if we did get a bite it would be a doctor's visit. And unless you provoke or scare this spider, it will not bite you.
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10-08-2009 @2:38PM syl1969 said... Whatever the picture, the story shows a great reason to use insecticides!!
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10-08-2009 @2:44PM Betsy said... Black widows are smaller shinier and the hourglass is on the BOTTOM of the spider. NOT a black widow.
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10-08-2009 @2:46PM Lowell said... I keep opening the fridge and hoping to find
a good looking naked woman not an old blakc widder spider.hahaha
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10-08-2009 @2:47PM Colby said... Big deal .... I live in Spokane Washington and black widows are very commen ... it's normal to find 7-8 after spraying the outside of your house in the fall and several in the garage ... They love sandy soil ... Although very poisness .. they are not very aggressive at all ... But If you do get bit ... YOUR SCREWED
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10-08-2009 @2:57PM Joe said... All you entymologists commenting on this story appareently have never seen a black widow. I have never seen one with the hour glass on the belly of the spider. I lived in FLorida for years and found them quite often. Severlas of you people are blithering idiots. Also, the 9.4% of you who find bugs in there food all the time are worse than idiots. You are full fledged liars.
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10-08-2009 @3:03PM Marumm said... Oh you big baby. We've got black widows all over the place in Arizona. They're quite docile and timid spiders and not hardly the unholy terror that people make them out to be. Now scorpions...
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10-08-2009 @3:13PM Shannon said... I wonder why the black widow stayed in the bag of grapes. You would think once it got picked up to be put in the cart it would make a break for it because it is being bothered. Thankfully nothing like this has ever happened to me, the closest thing was when I was at Cosi there was a small ant in my smore platter near the graham crackers. If it was anything else I probably would have thrown a fit.
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10-08-2009 @3:12PM sassew81 said... Living in central valley Ca all my life where grapes are grown it is common everywhere. These spiders do produce some nasty venom yes but I wouldn't fear them. I would fear the common house spider Pholcus phalangioides aka "daddy long leg" is one of the most deadliest of spiders though we have nothing to fear really, seeing is their fangs cannot break human or animal skin.
I have been bitten several time by the black widow the only stage id be weary about is when they are babies when they bite they release a massive amount of venom unlike the adult black widows that can regulate their venom dosages. a baby black widow is small and brown with white stripes on the back.
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10-08-2009 @3:13PM Dana said... It doesn't help that they bought the grapes from Whole Foods, which doesn't use insecticides since everything is Organic. Although Whole Foods is obviously healthier, those of us who buy from regular grocery stores have less of a chance of finding such a spider.
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10-08-2009 @3:16PM Jason said... Red Backed...Black widow....who CARES! If I see anything like that around me, it's gonna get the business end of my size 10. Problem solved!
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10-08-2009 @3:22PM BobK said... Quit the BS sensationalism. I've seen hour glasses, bright red. I've seen smaller, strange shapes too. Not all are traditional. There are tons of them in Vegas. They'er easy to find, just find a spider web that looks like a drunk spider wove it. They aren't that dangerous. You want trouble? Two words: Brown Recluse.
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10-08-2009 @3:24PM cathy said... I'm on the East coast & have found a spidier, type unknown, while washing store bought grapes. I didn't recognize it as a common local species, but it wasn't a Black Widow. Washed down the drain quite nicely!
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10-08-2009 @3:24PM sassew81 said... I looked up this spider pictured in this story it is call a RED BACK spider that is native to Australia same appearance of the black widow but the red back hour glass is its back as where the widow's is on the belly. If that is the actual picture of the spider caught then it is native to Australia not common in california
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10-08-2009 @3:29PM customguitar1966 said... I have a spyder---it sits in my driveway. its black and red
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10-08-2009 @3:34PM butterfly0520 said... I think are correct that the picture is that of the Latrodectus hasselti - the Austalian "Black Widow" and I doubt the grapes came from there. According to what the gentleman who found it said the the entomologist told I believe it must be the Latrodectus hesperus that has the red mark on the underside of the body since it would have come from California. Perhaps although I am just barely middle age I remember a different time when we were taught to check our facts before putting to print. Very poor journalism to publish an incorrect picture with the article.
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10-08-2009 @3:33PM amanda said... Hear hear to Jason's response. It's one thing to see a large spider -- or any other animal -- in your yard where you can admire its beauty and leave it to its business, but when you stumble across one in your house, it's alarming.
I always thought the Looney Toons response to seeing a mouse -- yelling "Eek!" and jumping on a chair -- was silly until I had my first mouse move in. It's certainly not scary, but it IS startling. When you suddenly hear the rustle of a little critter next to you, you do jump.
If I saw this or any other large spider in a snack, I'd do more than jump.
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