Global Arachnophobia!

Britain, not wanting to be left out on the global biting spider craze, is widely publicizing the case of a man who was bitten by a false widow spider. Now a false widow isn't actually all that dangerous, which the article admits. But they managed to get one man who might have had a worse than normal reaction to trumpet! The Telegraph explains:

The false widow spider, a relative of the black widow, bit Jason Fricker, 34, three times on the chest and stomach after it fell down the front of his shirt a week ago. By Sunday, after treatment as an outpatient the previous day, Mr Fricker, a father of two from Dorchester, was admitted as an emergency by doctors who believed the venom was attacking his nervous system, causing a heart attack.

The creature that caused such damage, Steatoda nobilis, is the only species of spider in Britain capable of biting humans. Although it has been known in Britain since arriving in Torquay in bananas from the Canary Islands in the 1870s, its numbers and range are now growing because of the milder climates.

While it is not nearly as venomous as the black widow, in recent years it has spread from the West Country across southern England as far as Sussex and is now migrating north through Surrey.

Stuart Hine, the manager of insect services at the Natural History Museum, said: "It is moving further northwards and is thought to be in London now. That's to do with the general warming up of winter temperatures because they are able to survive the winter and breed.

….

Doctors say that, in the vast majority of cases, the spider's bite should be no more painful, and the medical consequences no more serious, than a wasp sting.

Remarkable how everything is attributed to global warming, isn't it? There are, of course some other things that may be responsible such as a cleaner environment and less use of pesticides. It's not like we haven't seen those things come into play, is it?