This is the hair-raising moment a venomous spider is discovered lurking in a toddler’s Duplo at playtime.
Rowan Blair was at home in Melbourne, Australia, when a scream from another room made him spring into action.
He said: ‘My wife had our 18-month-old daughter in her lap, and had just tipped out the large box of Duplo onto the floor before screaming in fright.
‘I ran into the room, my daughter had been placed on a large chair and was frightened – probably more because of my wife’s scream rather than the spider.
‘She was saying “pider… dooon’t touch”, which is a modification of the mantra we use in the house – “look, but don’t touch”.
This is the hair-raising moment a venomous spider is discovered lurking in a toddler’s Duplo at playtime
Mr Blair believed it was a white-tailed spider, a venomous species whose bite can cause burning blisters, and – occasionally – nausea, vomiting, and headaches
‘My wife had gone to get some tissues, and when she returned and I had arrived, the spider was nowhere to be seen.
‘We had to individually flip each block and then place it back into the box until we uncovered the piece that the spider was hiding in.’
Mr Blair, 40, grabbed his camera and took some photos of the intruder.
He believed it was a white-tailed spider, a venomous species whose bite can cause burning blisters, and – occasionally – nausea, vomiting, and headaches.
Their bites also have a reputation, much contested, for causing necrosis – where the tissue of the skin dies.
Sharing a photo with a spider identification page on Facebook, Rowan’s suspicions were confirmed.
He said: ‘My initial instinct was that it was a Badumna or black house spider.
‘We have quite a few of them on the outside of the house, high up in the corners of the eaves, but I had not seen them inside.
‘It was only when I had a closer look that I assumed it was actually a lampona – a white-tailed spider, due to it having a much longer and slimmer body.’
He added: ‘I prefer to relocate than kill, however my wife moved quickly and squished the spider before I had the chance.’
Sharing a photo with a spider identification page on Facebook, Rowan’s suspicions were confirmed
White-tailed Spiders have a dark reddish to grey, cigar-shaped body and dark orange-brown banded legs
Though the Blairs are used to seeing spiders, the close encounter has affected them.
Rowan said: ‘As the spider was quite large and shocked my family, it definitely made us a bit nervous about them in the 24 hours since.
‘We will do a deep clean of that area of the house – the children’s play corner.
‘But my wife and I agreed that we live in Australia, there are spiders everywhere, and nine times out of 10 we will relocate them if possible.
‘If we see them as a potential threat to our young children, then I am comfortable disposing of the spider.’
The belief that white-tailed spider bites can cause skin ulcers and necrosis ‘has been in the zeitgeist for decades’, according to the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Melbourne.
In a species profile, the university acknowledged a ‘small number of cases of significant tissue loss’ arising from witnessed white-tailed spider bites.
But it emphasised that most alleged cases are ‘based on circumstantial evidence at best’.
It also cited a 2003 study that found no necrotic ulcers among 130 patients with white-tailed spider bites.
