We're never eating fruit ever again. Or any food. And we're locking ourselves in our house with a flamethrower.
A family in England got a surprise in their delivery of online shopping recently when they opened up a packet of bananas only to find one of the world/s most venomous spiders inside, a Brazilian wandering spider.
Known as the 'banana spider', the father of the family, Tim, was opening up a packet of the fruit when he spotted the poisonous creature. He managed to capture it, trapping one of its legs in the process, and then searched online to try and identify it. When they discovered it was incredibly dangerous, they contacted Waitrose who sent out someone to deal with it. We should all take a moment right here to appreciate the fact that we've never been told by our boss that we have to go and do something that involves the world's deadliest spider, which is definitely not in the job description of the average Waitrose employee, we assume. If you have, then...bad buzz.
They discovered when they got there, however, that the spider had freed itself, leaving behind one of its legs, and a lovely sack of eggs for the family and poor, unfortunate Waitrose employee. At that point, they called in an expert and the family spent the night at a friend's house as they went about finding the arachnid, who'd clearly made itself at home. They did eventually find it, and they destroyed the eggs too.
The wandering spider is the world's "most venomous spider" according to the Guinness Book of World Records and in even further good news, they are incredibly aggressive. They often enter places where humans dwell, or "hide in clothing or shoes. When disturbed they bite furiously several times". FURIOUSLY, lads.
Anyway, the family were offered £150 in vouchers as compensation by Waitrose, but will probably not be using that money to order bananas, we're guessing. The company added that they would be working closely with their supplier to minimise the chances of this happening again in future.
Via Mashable, The Daily Mail. Main pic via Wikipedia