Posted on 07/16/2008 1:50:49 PM PDT by Daffynition
It was supposed to be a healthy snack.
But a bunch of cut-price supermarket grapes became poisonous after they were infested by a pair of false widow spiders.
Ceri and Rose Williams suffered numbness, head aches and high blood pressure after eating the fruit they purchased in Tesco.
Mr Williams, 52, and his 45-year-old wife had already started munching on the two £1 bags of fruit when they noticed that something was moving inside.
A quick rummage revealed that two spiders, one alive and one dead, had already made a meal out of the Moroccan-grown grapes.
Mr Williams also spotted a cotton wool-like substance - which turned out to be the poisonous arachnid's nest.
Minutes later, Mr and Mrs Williams, who were on holiday in Newquay, Cornwall, fell ill and drove to hospital where doctors told them the fruit they had eaten had been covered in the spider's toxins.
They were monitored closely for several hours and have now made an official complaint to the supermarket in Wadebridge, Cornwall - which has offered to pay them back the £2 cost of the grapes. spider
A pregnant false widow spider - similar to the one which the couple found in a bag of grapes
Mr and Mrs Williams, of Barry in Wales, have become the UK's tenth and eleventh victims of false widows which experts say are spreading thanks to global warming.
Mother-of-two Mrs Williams, a housewife, said: 'I absolutely hate spiders at the best of times, so this was really my worst nightmare.
'I still feel sick thinking about it and I'm checking everything I eat and washing it carefully too.
'It's made me particularly nervous about eating fruit. My five portions a day have gone out of the window for the foreseeable future.'
Her husband, a carpenter, added: 'We only bought the packets because they were reduced to £1 and when we opened it we saw a dead spider stuck to what looked like cotton wool.
'We now know it was some kind of nest which is completely horrifying. The live one was very lively.
'We just wanted to find out to find out what it was. This whole episode has definitely put me off grapes - and really put me off fruit in general.'
Environmental health officers identified the beasts as false widow spiders - Latin name Steatoda nobilis - cousin of the famous Black Widow.
Mrs Williams said: 'We had three days of detective work while we were on our holiday to find out what it was.'
A spokesman for Tesco, said: 'With all the expertise, checks and will in the world it is not always possible to completely legislate for the natural world. It must have been a real scare.'
But Rose added: ''They've offered a £2 refund, which is a bit cheeky considering we were half scared to death.'
The spiders have now been handed over to Defra who conduct their own investigations into such matters.
False widow spiders are venomous and have fangs that can pierce the skin and are usually found in large numbers in the Canary Islands
Stuart Hine, of the Natural History Museum, said: 'Global warming means that spiders which originate from southern Europe and North Africa and Asia are now more likely to be able to survive in Britain.'
There have been no fatal bites from a false widow in the UK. Doctors say that in the vast majority of cases the bite should be no worse than a wasp sting.
They are the most venomous of the twelve biting spiders found in Britain, though only the females bite.
As well as grapes, the spiders feed on insects and other spiders.
I found an Al in a box of Franken Berrys once. Much scarier.
Global warming. It's the new Bush's fault.
One day we will look upon this as the era of the Global Warming Scare.
A time when we were warned of an impending Green Menace. A time when global climate change was lurking under every bed!
Just DAMN! How about blaming it on GLOBALIZATION that brings grapes to Wales from Morocco??? IDIOTS!!
Global trade would be a bigger factor. How else could Morrocan spiders get across the ocean?
Mine too. Spiders inject their prey (typically insects) with venom, which breaks down the internal workings of the prey item so that the spider can "drink" its food. It's unthinkable that a spider would cover a piece of fruit with venom. Methinks these imbeciles were bitten by the spider, or even more probable, their "illnesses" are all in their minds.
Scary to look at, but they're quite harmless.
Wrong. They became the tenth and eleventh Darwin Award wannabes for not washing the produce before they ate it. A cow could have taken a crap on those grapes before they reached the market. People can be so stupid.
WASH YOUR FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn thats gross.
No joke.
What idiot eats food like that without washing........
There’s been a few times over the years when there have been tarantulas in shipments of fruit around here. It happens everywhere. Glad you had the coverage!
Maybe but no way can every grape, tomato, strawberry and orange be inspected always and forever. There are million sof huge shipments in every port that are never checked for anything, let alone a curled up spider the size of a marble.
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