World's deadliest spider at Tesco

[Peter Lacey]

I can't personally vouch for this being the deadliest spider, no doubt someone will provide info. Doesn't sound like one you should handle though LOL

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1052712/Worlds-deadliest-spider-discovered-Britain-inside-box-Tesco-bananas.html

[Matthew Potts]

michael will spot this no doubt and provide the needed info. We were discussing this last week funnily enough

[jason holland]

wish that had been in my store. would have loved to have found that

[James Box]

those morons killed the poor thing!
i am absolutely livid. i have posted a comment about it, mentioning that there are several societies that should have been contacted, rather than the RSPCA.
what a waste of skin they are
killing a spider that had done no wrong but to be on the wrong bunch of bananas at the wrong time!

[michaelmckinney]

Well, to me the pic they have used, looks like Phoneutria Fera. All the Phoneutria spp. are classed as the deadliest genus of spiders. P. Nigriventer causes the most invenomations, as it resides near human settlements, more so than the other 7 species. The only way to determine which species it was correctly, is to find out where the bananas point of origin was.

Michael.

[michaelmckinney]

I agree James, there would of been plenty of Scientists, that would,ve loved to get some research done on the species. It may have been too dangerous for photographers, but not for experts.

Michael.

[James Box]

it's just a sad loss of life
so many could've given it a great home and studied it!

[Andrew Ferguson]

This line from the article intriques me the most

He said: 'It was very aggressive and trying to go for me when I was putting it in the box. It was really jumping around and trying to attack me.'

I'm not normally a cynical person but my first thought was "b*****ks!",
I'd put my mortgage on it that the more he told this story, the spider would grow to the size of a T.blondi (or one of those bird eating spiders thingy's as he would describe it), had huge teeth and probably wore a huddie!!
The story writer is also an idiot. The headline states the spider was in Tesco but the story says it was a Co-op worker who found it. Maybe the spider was feeling the credit crunch too and decided to shop around for cheaper bananas!

[James Box]

lol well spotted mate!

as for aggressive, wouldn't you be a bit panicky and jumpy if someone just shoved you in a box?
man these people are so subjective.
every day i am more and more embarassed to be in the same species as 90% of the human population

[michaelmckinney]

Good one Andrew,

"Huge Deadly Spider, goes undercover at Co-op, as banana prices sky rocket!!!!!" LOL. And you know for certain it will be exaggerated to the hilt, everytime he's in the pub LOL.

Michael.

[matthew spooner]

now i am highly annoyed to learn of this incident. there are a couple of RSPCA officers that have my mobile number and i sometimes get contacted for re homing arachnids. i work literally 30 seconds away from that tesco store and this is the first i had heard of it. there is someone within my club that has his number with the RSPCA aswell and he has a 48 hour dangerous animal licence, which the RSPCA have utilised in the past, so why the hell wasnt one of us given a call, they may well say it was humanely killed but nothing about killing a healthy animal is humane.

[Phil Rea]

This line from the article intriques me the most

He said: 'It was very aggressive and trying to go for me when I was putting it in the box. It was really jumping around and trying to attack me.'

Phoneutria spp. are known to be fairly aggressive, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhat annoyed.

[Matthew Baines]

Im disgusted , but then again its the rspca and it really doesn't surprise me , nearly as bad as traffic wardens if you ask me , only thing is traffic wardens know more about animals than the rspca !!!!

[Lisa Baines]

Aye, the RSPCA and exotic animals really dont mix. They could tell you everything about domestic pets but the ignorance towards exotics is unforgivable. Personally if the RSPCA are to continue with dealing with exotics they should have a group dedicated to their welfare.
Better still a totally new organisation dedicated to the care and protection of exotics.

Because I know there are so many people who tell the RSPCA that they have DWA or some sort of license to house such species but they rarely utilise them. I remember where i used to live a snake had been underfed and kept in bad conditions... I let the RSPCA know i was in a position to take in non DWA reptiles and arachnids and what did they do. keep it at the local centre in wrong conditions and it died. The upsetting thing was i lived about 30 seconds away from where it was found. So i have absolutly NO respect for the RSPCA in this respect.

My friend at a local reptile shop once said she had the RSPCA out to her shop about a chamelian in poor conditions. The first thing the RSPCA officer said was... "What does a chamelian look like" To add insult to injury she had never HAD a chamelian in the shop the whole time she had been trading!

The only thing i respect about them is that they stop abuse to domestic animals where possible. But I hate their guts when it comes to reptiles and arachnids...even exotic birds!

[matthew spooner]

Amen to that Lisa. maybe some of us should come together to form an organisation for the exotics. working together we could cover pretty much the whole of the uk