Deadly Spider Hijacks Grocery Store Bananas, Gnaws Off Its Own Leg To Escape Capture

If you haven’t been eyeing those bunches of grocery store bananas suspiciously after past spider ambushes, this most recent incident might make you pay attention. Not only did a deadly, venomous Brazilian Wandering Spider jump out of a bunch of fruit delivered by a shopping service in the UK, but it was so dedicated to getting away from captors that it gnawed its own leg off.

It also left behind a sac filled with hundreds of spider eggs, reports the Daily Mail, eggs that would’ve eventually hatched and turned just as deadly as their apparent parent. Though who knows, the giant spider in the bananas might’ve just been the babysitter.

In any case, the family says it was “deeply traumatized” by the unexpected arachnid delivered to their South London home by a company called Waitrose.

The father managed to trap the spider at one point, pinning its leg in the fruit bowl, it just chewed that appendage off and escaped.

The family called supermarket and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but both said they weren’t equipped to deal with the spider, whose venom can kill within two hours. The police were no help either, but Waitrose eventually sent a pest control expert, who was able to corral the spider with a three-foot stick and lock it into three boxes, calling the thing “hardcore.”

He also found the sac of spider eggs, and stuck them in the freezer to kill them.

The dad managed to take pictures of it, though the family fled the house for the evening, unable to rest easy with the beast in the house.

“We were terrified. We got ourselves and our kids out of the house straight away,” he said.

“The safety of our customers is our absolute priority,” Waitrose said in a statement. “We did everything we could to look after our customer during what was a distressing incident and we’ve apologised personally. Although this is highly unusual, we’re taking it very seriously and will be working with our supplier to minimise the risk of this happening again.”

The chain offered the family £150 of shopping vouchers and a family day out to make up for the scary experience. I would probably demand a new brain so I could forget what had just happened.

Family’s terror as they find world’s deadliest spider trapped in Waitrose home delivery… and it gnaws its own leg off to escape [The Daily Mail]

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