The Banana Spider is known to hide among bananas shipped to the US and is really called the Brazilian Wandering Spider. These spiders are aggressive and very venomous and not intimidated by size (can attack people when threatened).
The odd part about the Banana Spider is that studies indicate only 33% of the spider bites actually contain any significant amount of venom, but those that are injected with venom could be in serious danger!
If you are bitten by a Brazilian Wandering spider (Phoneutria spp.), you should seek immediate emergency treatment as the venom could possibly be life threatening. The Phoneutria not only has a potent neurotoxin, but is said to have one of the most excruciatingly painful spider bites of all spiders due to its high concentration of serotonin.
Despite the Banana Spider’s reputation as the world’s deadliest spider, there are multiple studies that dispute the ability for the spider to actually kill a human and one study suggested that a little over 2% of these spider bites (mostly in children) were serious enough to require antivenom.
On the other hand, there are other studies suggesting that the Banana Spider is indeed the most toxic spider in the world based upon toxicology studies. One of the most notable and thorough studies is presented in the book “Venomous Animals and their Venoms Vol. III” by Wolfgang Bucheral and Eleanor Buckley. This study has some shocking findings that clearly demonstrate how lethal the Brazilian Wandering spider can actually be.
There is an antidote for the bite of a Banana Spider and was discovered by Carlos Chagas from Brazil.
If you see a spider hiding in a cluster of Bananas, you should move right along and possibly inform the store manager that is may be a Banana Spider!
I live in Okinawa, Japan. Stationed here with my husband (USMC). We have what the locals call “banana spiders ” here. The Okinawans here say that they are poisonous. I have seen may of them. They can get the size of a dinner plate. I usually see them on webs. So, I don’t know what other sort of spiders you are talking about, but I know we have them here and both the host nationals and the Naval Hospital here say they are dangerous. I really don’t mind spiders, but those things, creep me out when they are larger than my hand.
George says:….George, that is a banana spider. We have them here in Okinawa, Japan.
hey guys so this morning i woke up and i had a spider bite on my finger. its all swollen and yellow and surrounded by red. but heres the weird part, the bite is shaped like a spade. strange right? i cant figure out what kind of spider it could be or if it is poisioness. im really worried. i live in south korea and i really would like to know what type of spider this could be. any guesses?
Me and my husband were on our honey moon in brazill and we were just walking around and we saw bananas being shipped to the U.S. and they let us look inside to see the bananas my husband stuck his hand deep in there to move them around and he took his hand out then and the banana spider on his index finger and it bit him the bite looked all fleshy but luckily we got him to the hospital in time.
hey guys, i have just read an article from BBC news talking about a store in the UK (Asda) a very common store which found a banana spider in there bananas, they assume that these spiders are harmless and cant kill you.
i have also read that these spiders are really deadly who shall i believe, knowing the asda store is a huge business, i reckon they somehow convinced the people to make everyone think this spider is harmless?
I found a banana spider in my drive the other day and shot it with my air rifle. They’re fairly large so they are an easy target. It just stood there after a fast run. I just thought it would make a cool target. Good shot, right in between the head and the body. Then I shoveled it and put it in the bin.
Sorry for the spider lovers out there. I know it’s bad luck to kill a spider, but they are venomous and dangerous, so I did what I had to do.
Worried in California: that is not a bite on your leg. The spider has drawn that on your leg so it and other spiders know where to bite you next time…
So you had better watch out!
KATHLEEN: the first bite was most likely harmless. It does sound like your friend exposed you to the bite of the potato spider which looks very similar to a potato. Symptoms are it swells up hard then disappears. Be careful in future of being around potatoes as they might be the potato spider so watch out!
In Baltimore we used to have a banana spider as a pet. We used to feed it bananas and keep it full so it wouldn’t be hungry and want to eat us. It was a huge spider.
We used to take it for walks after dinner on the sidewalk. If a dog or another spider approached us his hairs would turn yellow-red and the other animal used to have to watch out!
Christine you should call the police it sounds like your husband might have killed a baby. You can worry about the banana spiders when he is in custody where he belongs!
Cindy it sounds like the people in your household are approaching the end you should succumb to the banana spiders bite.
The egg sacs in bananas are in fact very nutritious. The Chinese have eaten them for centuries. Make sure you freeze then first to stun the baby spiders before frying it.
Sarah I think your mom may have been holding a banana in her hand not a banana spider.
Cia there is a dedicated team of scientists working on keeping BWS out of bananas. They are experimenting scaring the babies of banana spiders with yellow objects in the hope the spiders fear yellow. However the scientists fear they may become apple or celery spiders as it is likely they will use a fruit or vegetable that is close in the alphabet.
my mother found a banana spider one day walking on a trail at a campground her and my brother put it into a plastic pop bottle and took it to the DNR so they could get it sent in. these spiders are very mean and will jump at you. I tested it myself i put my finger on the bottle and before i could touch the bottle it jumped at me. if you do find one i strongly suggest you take it to the DNR or someone who can get it sent in so your town or state will get the med. to treat a bite.
we live a small town in Iowa this spider was brought here on fire wood by other campers from out of state, and that spider wasn’t the only one found in our town people have been finding them at other camp grounds and sent them in also. If i were someone who found one i would either try and find away to trap it or run away. BE SAFE!!
Doug,
Orb weavers are actually very helpful spiders, they do reduce the amount of insects immensely! If it weren’t for them we’d have a lot more pesky insects in the summer. Plus, orb weavers are harmless and certainly not venomous at all. They do more good then anything else!
Does anyone know what scientist is working on the problem of keeping the Brazilian Wandering Spider out of bananas?
When I moved to Florida, Banana spiders were all lumped into the big spiders. The golden orb and the introduced giant crab spiders. If I keep my vents open, palmettobugs and giant crab spiders would be crawling on my walls and me.
I live in Mobile, AL. and for as long as I can remember I have seen what we call “banana spiders”, but just recently learned are Golden orb-weaver spiders, all over the place. But this year I cannot recall seeing any. If I did it was only one or two. Does anyone know the reason for this? Not that I mind of course. I hate running through their webs on my morning jog. And I was wondering if the lack of spiders would lead to more insects in the summer?
i have found many spiders and mantis’s around my house i just found something that looks like a spider I’ve never seen anything like it , not sure what it is , black wide back like it could fly, and when I swept it with the broom this orange thing came out of its butt. anybody ever heard of anything like this let me know
My father mentioned that he worked at a grocery store in Pennsylvania back in the early 1940s. He said that, among other things, his job involved unloading and breaking down bunches of bananas that had arrived from Central or South America. Apparently one had to be extremely careful when working with the bananas because of the “banana spiders”, which he described as large and somewhat similar to a tarantula.
They were infamous for having a very painful bite, but no report that anyone died after envenomation. Much more rare were small monkeys that had survived the trip inside the bananas and were greatly prized as pets. This is generally not an issue today as most imported bananas are gassed to prevent this type of thing.
i saw a spider on my deck a second ago it made a giant web from the flag pole to the deck to the wall of my house it was really big so was the spider i think that’s strange because i live in East Taunton MA which is near Ri it was was copper with yellow and brown striped bands on its legs is it a banana spider or a relative or something else?
The spider is quite frightening and ugly to see, enough to make that instinct in you come alive and make you run off, away from it. The Brazilian Wandering Spider grows to about 5 inches in length with a body of about 1 inch long. They like to eat lizards, mice, large insects and even other spiders.
The Brazilian Wandering Spider will usually rear up on four of is legs to give intention of imminent attack, just before it actually does attack!
wandering spiders don’t make webs,you will know if you see one it will raise his front legs up in the air and sway from side to side warning you when his hair on his chin turns red you better get away or hes gonna attack
One of its most favored dwelling places is within bunches of bananas and consequently many of these deadly creatures have appeared around the world more notably in supermarkets. The spider is the classic stow-away and will secret itself in the center of a bunch of bananas only to emerge when the bananas are being sorted at their destination i.e.: the US, Canada, UK, Germany in fact any country that imports bananas.
The Brazilian Wandering Spider is not just indigenous to South America as these creatures have also been found in Cameroon, Africa and other hot countries as well. It isn’t called a wanderer for nothing !The Brazilian Wandering Spider has an ostensible reputation as being a very nasty creature to come across due its nature of being extremely aggressive.
It can run very fast and will attack anything that gets too close to it…including people. The spider is very nervous possibly paranoid and this agitated state tends to make the spider chose to fight rather than flight. SARAH OR WHOEVER THE CHANCES OF YOU SEEING ONE IN AMERICA AND YOUR MOM HOLDING IT IS BS, READ THIS ARTICLE.
How long does it take for a banana spiders eggs to hatch?