A bite from ‘Britain’s most dangerous spider’ left a five-year-old child covered ‘literally from head to toe’ in a rash and unable to walk.
Lily Hodgson, 5, didn’t know she had been bitten when she told her mother her ankle hurt and it hurt to walk.
By bedtime, her face was itchy too – so her parents, thinking it was a reaction to food, gave her antihistamines.
But later that evening, mother Genna Hunt woke up shocked to find her daughter covered in a rash.
She said: ‘I woke up at 3am to Lily feeling hot next to me. I turned on the light and almost screamed into her poor face.
A bite from ‘Britain’s most dangerous spider’ left a five-year-old child covered ‘literally from head to toe’ in a rash and unable to walk
Lily Hodgson, 5, didn’t know she had been bitten when she told her mother her ankle hurt and it hurt to walk
‘I woke her up and she was literally covered from head to toe in this strange rash.
‘It got worst when the itchy rash was in her hair and all the way down to her toes, which was 24 hours later.
‘The next day her ankle hurt and she refused to walk on it.’
In the morning Genna, 34, took Lily to their local pharmacy in Eastleigh, Hampshire.
Miss Hunt said: ‘I assumed it was a food allergy and that it would clear up quickly.
‘The pharmacist took us into a small side room, had a look and asked some questions.
‘I did say her ankle hurt. At that point she was no longer walking on it, but the ankle was not swollen.
‘He said he suspected it was a bite reaction and not a food allergy, and that he would like her to be seen by the GP urgently.’
Genna continued, “We were taken to a room with an on-call paramedic covering the practice.
“He grabbed a magnifying glass and said, ‘Yes, it’s a false widow spider bite.’ He said he hadn’t seen many cases where they reacted like Lily’s.’
The noble false widow is “widely regarded as the most dangerous spider breeding species in Britain,” according to a 2020 article by Clive Hambler, a zoologist at the University of Oxford.
“I woke her up and she was literally covered in this weird rash from head to toe,” said her mother, Gemma
The noble false widow is “widely regarded as the most dangerous spider breeding species in Britain,” according to a 2020 article by Clive Hambler, a zoologist at the University of Oxford.
They are known as Steatoda nobilis and are not native to Britain. They are believed to have arrived in banana boxes from the Canary Islands in the late 19th century, before slowly spreading north.
“We have no idea when she was bitten or what she was doing at the time,” Genna said.
“That day she had been playing inside my parents’ house, walked the three-minute walk home to ours, and then played inside our house.”
She continued: ‘Lily was already taking antibiotics and antihistamines for tonsillitis and ear infections, so we were told to continue with them as that’s what he would have prescribed anyway.
‘I wonder what the response would have been if Lily hadn’t already been taking antibiotics and antihistamines. Would it have been much worse?’
Despite the itching and some discomfort when walking, brave Lily has held up well.
Her rash cleared up after four days and she is especially disappointed that her bite didn’t give her her superpowers “like Spider-Man.”
But the experience has made Miss Hunt vigilant against false widows, and she is speaking out to warn others.
Miss Hunt said: ‘I assumed it was a food allergy and that it would go away quickly’
She said: ‘I’m now extra paranoid about spiders in the house. Lily has been told to come get us if she sees a spider in her room and not to pick one up.
She added: ‘Honestly, if you have any kind of rash, especially like Lily’s, please get it looked at.
‘Pharmacists are trained in rashes and they are available to see just by going into a pharmacy and asking to see them.’
Despite their bad reputation, false widows are unlikely to attack unless provoked or trapped between clothing and skin.