Attack of the giant killer spiders!

[klr]

... in India

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king9.html

Giant spiders spark panic in India

Colonies of giant biting spiders have attacked villagers and sparked panic in remote north-east India.

But officials said locals’ attempts to treat the painful swelling caused by the bites may be more dangerous than the spiders themselves.

Two bite victims have died in Tinsukia district.

Officials said it is unclear whether they died from venom or from treatment by witch doctors who cut them with razor blades to drain the wounds.

No post-mortem examinations were carried out before the victims were cremated.

Doctors at Sadiya town hospital said another seven victims were given antibiotics after they tried to drain their wounds.

Ecologist LR Saikia, from Assam’s Dibrugarh University, said the hairy spiders may be a newly discovered tarantula species.

The hairy spiders were first noticed about a month ago across Tinsukia district’s grassy plains and dense jungle forests north of the Brahmaputra River.

Ecologist Mr Saikia said: “It looks like a new species. We haven’t been able to identify it.”

Officials cannot use anti-venom in treating bite victims until the species is identified.

Meanwhile, villagers are keeping lamps on at night and standing guard against spiders entering their mud-and-thatch huts.

About 100,000 villagers, mostly poor rice farmers, live in the area which is cut off from roads by the river.

Officials said the spiders are now also showing up south of the Brahmaputra.

There's a picture of one of the spiders in the original article.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Don't worry, it's dead.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

[mistermack]

It's a beautiful spider.
But I'd be flattening any that I came across super-quick.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I used to squash spiders by reflex, a reflex I've earned and am quite justified in having. However, with all the spider pix post here I've shifted positions. Yesterday I felt something bump against my head and looked up to see a largish (for this place anyway) spider scrambling up the doorframe. Instead of thinking KILL, I though, where's a camera?

[Robert_S]

They make better pictures alive, but at least they sit still long enough for me to focus on them when they're dead.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

They make better pictures alive, but at least they sit still long enough for me to focus on them when they're dead.

I used to collect dead bugs and photograph them at Purdue. The things a student worker gets paid for...

[Svartalf]

I hear the reports of the "invasion of the killer spiders" are more of an urban legend or yellow journalism than fact...?

Web of doubt surrounds India spider attack

By Molly Gray


A swarm of poisonous spiders has wreaked havoc in a remote town in northeast India, scaring its inhabitants and possibly killing two people.

According to a report Sunday in The Times of India, a large number of spiders descended on the town of Sadiya in Assam as a local festival came to end on May 8 and sparked panic as residents tried to avoid the swarm.

The report said that scores of people later visited the town's hospital with spider bites and a middle-aged man and a teenage boy died after being bitten by the spiders.

The incident alarmed local officials who told residents to stay indoors and considered spraying the town with insecticide, the report said.

Jintu Gogoi told The Times he felt excruciating pain and nausea after being bitten by one of the spiders and his finger was black and swollen.

However, the attack has puzzled spider experts.

Last month, LR Saikia and a team of researchers from Dibrugarh University visited the town to investigate what had happened.

Saikia told CNN that he believed the man may have died from a snake bite, while the boy may not have suffered any bite at all.

"The evidence that we gathered does not support the claim that they died after being bitten by spiders," Saikia said.

Saikia added that the man's relatives appeared to have taken him to traditional spiritual healers instead of qualified doctors when symptoms appeared.

He confirmed that about 12 people have visited hospitals in the area recently, complaining of spider bites.

"Only two of them were confirmed bitten by spiders. But they were ordinary spiders," Saikia said.

Investigators drew their conclusions from questioning relatives of the two dead people about the type of bite marks and symptoms, Saikia said.

Some 20 spiders resembling tarantulas from the incident were handed over to investigators during their week-long stay.

Tarantulas indigenous to the region are not known to be fatally venomous, but about five of the recovered spiders are currently undergoing tests.

When asked if spiders were likely to have swarmed the town of just under 1,000 people, Saikia said, "This is just a story ... based on rumors."

[Gawdzilla Sama]

In a country with Godmen, anything is likely to be told as truth.

[Bella Fortuna]

My spidey sense is tingling!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My spidey sense is tingling!

[mistermack]

I don't think that big spiders like Tarantulas are likely to swarm.

They grow slowly, and reproduce slowly, taking on average three or four years to reach maturity, and sometimes much more, even over ten years. And they can go a year or more without eating. It's not the kind of high-speed life cycle that produces swarming.

You might get a mini swarm, of tiny spiders, just after the eggs have hatched, but it's unlikely to persist over a number of years.