alt Hacker NewsIn South America there's a very aggressive spider that lives on the bananas (genus Phoneutria). Spiders usually shy away from humans but these attack and have a very nasty venom. I wonder if the heat will take nasty critters to Europe.
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Reminds me of Cecropia trees which are adapted to use some ant species as self defense. The trees live 20-30 years (the same length as an ant queen) and exudes a protein rich substance to feed the ants called Müllerian bodies. The ants in return aggressively protect the tree.
I grow a plantain orchard in South America and while i need to take double care of such spiders, they are not aggressive at all. I find them super cute and let visit my home as well. :)
Phoneutria are interesting animals. Needed to evolve defenses against the gluttony of monkeys. It must be a tasty spider. It happens that we are monkeys also, so the venom is carefully designed against us.
There is a registered case of a Phoneutria bite in UK at least, and the chef was sent directly to an hospital. To be fair, they dislike the cold so the spider had its reasons to be upset when he opened the fridge to grab a banana.
The spider is easily identified because it has four identical small frontal eyes arranged as a perfect square. Is big, bold and it warns before to attack [1] (most tarantulas are shy). And it jumps, of course. Can hide, once in a blue moon, in exported South American banana bunches (European breed bananas are spider free).
[1] If it raise the legs showing the yellow and black rings beneath is a clear warning saying "get lost right now, of I will land on your face"
We grow bananas at our farm in India and we have never seen this spider ever.