Flying widowsTires shipped from Arizona to a U.K. contained black widow spiders
Two shipments of tires from an Arizona company to a U.K.-based client contained dozens of deadly Black Widow spiders; it appears that the spiders nested in the tires in Arizona, and hatched a brood of young spiders while the shipment was on its 5,000-mile journey to England.
The black widow, most venomous spider in North America // Source: arizona.edu
A business in England received a container of car tires shipped in from the United States, but when the containers were opened and the tires unloaded, company employees discovered that some of the tires were taken by deadly black widow spiders who used the tires as nests.
Black widow spiders have a bite fifteen times more poisonous than a rattlesnake.
A Fox News reports that managers at the Fendercare Marine office in Seething, near Norwich, said that it was the second time in five weeks that the black widows have arrived in a tire shipment ordered from Arizona.
Mark Cook, health and safety boss at Fendercare, said that the spiders probably have nested and hatched a brood of young inside the container before its 5,000-mile journey to the United Kingdom.
“It is quite rare and not something we get on a regular basis, but we are a global operator so it is one of those things.
“We take containers from all over the place, and our guys are used to checking for wildlife, so when they opened the doors they spotted the spiders and shut the doors to keep them trapped in.
“The poor little creatures have got a bad reputation with people thinking that their bite is immediately fatal, but generally people are just fairly sick.”
Local pest control experts were called to the scene and fumigated the containers, killing the spiders.
