June 25th, 2018 by Chris Chapman

Every year the media is full of horror stories about the infamous false widow. This eight-legged creature has found notoriety as Britain’s most venomous spider, and as with every media horror story, there’s a lot of information and misinformation out there about the false widow! So, should you be concerned for your safety? Read on to find out all you need to know about the false widow!

1. There’s More Than One Kind

Not all species of false widow are venomous, only this one: the noble false widow. Photo: Lmbuga There are actually many species of false widow spider, with current count at over 120! Don’t worry, though; only a handful live in the UK, and of that handful, even less are biters. When you see people referring to the false widow, they’re usually talking about the noble false widow, because it’s the most venomous but also the most common.

2. They’re Not Deadly

For all the media hysteria about false widows, nobody in the UK has ever actually died from a false widow bite! A bite from a false widow is very painful, make no mistake, with the pain being comparable to a wasp sting, but it won’t kill you and probably won’t even need medical attention. Usually, the anxiety and stress caused by a spider bite are more dangerous than the bite itself, so try to stay calm! False widow bites are notorious thanks to gross-out images of infected bites that are commonly shared on social media, but very few of them ever get that bad. If you’re bitten, keep the area clean and dry for a few days to avoid infection, although you should seek medical attention if your bite starts to get worse after a day or so.

3. They Like it Indoors

  False widows are just spiders, and can be kept at bay with regular spider repellent Like most spiders, false widows will make their homes in greenhouses and sheds a lot of the time, but they’ll look for somewhere warmer when the autumn comes, which means they enter people’s homes fairly regularly. This is probably another reason why they’re so infamous! It’s important to remember they’re just spiders, so you can keep them out with some spider repellent or mechanical spider repellent.  

4. They’re Not Interested in You

False widow spider bites are quite painful, but they don’t want to bite you! They don’t suck blood, nor do they eat flesh or anything like that. They’ll only bite humans as an absolute last resort if they feel threatened. They are known to bite if they get trapped against skin, so it’s worth examining the inside of shoes and wellies in the autumn just to make sure that a spider hasn’t made its way in there. Apart from that, if you see one, leave it alone and it’ll leave you alone.

5. They’ve Been Here A While

Thanks to social media spreading stories of false widow sightings, many people assume false widows only arrived in Britain over the last 20 years or so. This isn’t true – they’ve actually been here since the 1800s! They were brought over here by ships coming from the Canary Islands and have happily spread throughout the south of England ever since. Thanks to the warmer summers and milder winters that we’ve experienced over the past few decades, false widows have started to spread further north, with recent reports placing the false widow as far north as Scotland.