Britain's most dangerous spider strikes in Hertfordshire: Man is left in 'unbearable' pain and struggling to walk after bite from noble false widow
Keith Robinson, 65, says he developed a large, angry inflammation on his leg shortly after clearing out cobwebs at home.
At first he tried to treat it himself using painkillers and savlon, but before long it became too much to bear and he went to the hospital.
Now he's been diagnosed with cellulitis around the wound, and can only walk for short distances before 'intense pain' sets in.
Mr Robinson, from Watford, Hertfordshire, believes a noble false widow was responsible.
He said: 'It must be more than coincidence that I had removed a large number of cobwebs from the house by hoover.
'So I'm thinking that I've disturbed a spider, and at some point, I got bitten.'
The bite, unnoticeable at first, only got worse as the days passed.
Keith Robinson, 65, says he developed a large, angry inflammation on his leg shortly after clearing out cobwebs at home
He said: 'The stinging pain almost became unbearable at times until I was given stronger pain killers and antibiotics.
'The worst it got was the weekend of May 10. That's when I decided it was best to go to the hospital.
'Doctors diagnosed cellulitis due to infection of the bite.
'I was given a blood test and put on a saline drip, before I was released with painkillers and antibiotics.'
The noble false widow is 'widely regarded as the most dangerous spider breeding in Britain,' according to a 2020 paper by Clive Hambler, an Oxford University zoologist.
Known as Steatoda nobilis, they're not native to Britain and are thought to have arrived from the Canary Islands in banana boxes in the late 1800s before slowly spreading northwards.
Keith hadn't realised just how severe a spider bite could be in Britain.
He said: 'I can work but I am not able to walk very far without intense pain in that leg for quite a while.
The noble false widow is 'widely regarded as the most dangerous spider breeding in Britain,' according to a 2020 paper by Clive Hambler, an Oxford University zoologist
'Life at home is very sedentary at the moment.
'It's not easy to cope with being so immobile now and the pain can be relentless without the painkillers.
'I hope I never get bitten again – this has been a painful experience just from a spider bite here in the UK.'
Now he's speaking out to warn others to be cautious around the noble false widow.
He said: 'Avoid them – check all spiders in your house or outbuildings where they like to live and remove them if found.
'If you catch a bite or suspect one then go to hospital and get it checked out the same day.'
ARACHNOPHOBIA IS IN OUR DNA
Recent research has claimed that a fear of spiders is a survival trait written into our DNA.
Dating back hundreds of thousands of years, the instinct to avoid arachnids developed as an evolutionary response to a dangerous threat, the academics suggest.
It could mean that arachnophobia, one of the most crippling of phobias, represents a finely tuned survival instinct.
And it could date back to early human evolution in Africa, where spiders with very strong venom have existed millions of years ago.
Study leader Joshua New, of Columbia University in New York, said: 'A number of spider species with potent, vertebrate specific venoms populated Africa long before hominoids and have co-existed there for tens of millions of years.
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