Spider expert: We’re more likely to be injured running away from spiders than being bitten by them

A wildlife expert has revealed the real reason spiders hurt people. And it is not what you think.

Do you know the spider danger responsible for ten times more hospital admissions that any other?

Chair of Green Adelaide and urban wildlife expert Professor Chris Daniels says arachnophobia is our biggest spider danger, and leads to many more injuries when people flee from the almost always harmless animals.

He says it is “spider time” on social media because at the current point in the life cycle the millions of tiny spider babies nobody noticed in spring now appear very large to householders.

“The end of summer is always when spiders become prominent to many people because they begin in spring as absolutely minute and by now they are much larger, especially spiders like the Garden Orb which is appearing all over Facebook because people are walking into the webs at night,” he said.

Redback Spider vs Snake on a property north west of Port Augusta. Picture Katrina Morris.

But Prof. Daniels said many people did not know that common injuries caused by people fleeing spiders were around ten times more frequent than serious reactions from bites.

“People far more often hurt themselves falling off a ladder or running away from a spider,” he said.

“People get really silly around spiders.

“Spiders are often very visible, but if you see one the first rule of spiders is; do not panic.

“It is incredibly rare for someone to be significantly affected by a spider bite.’’

Far North resident Katrina Morris said she was confronted by double trouble in her garden shed on Thursday.

“I just went into my shed and a redback was killing a baby brown snake about ten centimetres long and it is disgusting,’’ she said.

“I don’t like either of them.”

Prof. Daniels said all spiders should be viewed as “good” by householders because Adelaide would be uninhabitable without them.

“If it wasn’t for spiders Adelaide would be infested with flies, mosquitoes and cockroaches and all sorts of things,’’ he said.

He said Adelaide spiders which could harm humans were the Redback, — the Brown Recluse which was first found in Adelaide 15 years ago via the United States — and although “massively exaggerated”, the White Tailed Spider.

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