Herald Sun, Australia – 21 July 2005
They have an evil reputation but white-tailed spiders might not be as bad as people fear. Popular myth is that the spider’s bite can cause a large ulcer or lesion and kill the surrounding tissue, but a study has blown the myth and the spider’s nasty reputation.
Dr Geoff Isbister, from Darwin’s Menzies School of Health Research, told an emergency medicine conference in New Zealand on 21 July that the spider’s bite does not cause necrotic ulcers. A recent study of 130 confirmed white-tailed spider bites found no cases of necrotic arachnidism – the death of skin and tissue after a spider bite. In a separate study of 750 spider bites in Australia, there were no cases of necrosis.
“The ubiquitous nature of the white-tailed spider, occurring in many homes in Australasia, meant they were blamed for ulcers based on weak circumstantial evidence – spiders often sighted only the day after the bite,” he said. “Suspected and unconfirmed case reports appeared in the medical literature, and despite good evidence, white-tailed spiders were believed to cause necrotic ulcers.” Dr Isbister said where necrotic ulcers did occur, further investigation in each case had found a different cause.
