A man was left out of work with his leg swollen ‘like a balloon’ after a ‘horrific’ bite from ‘Britain’s most dangerous spider’. 

Shane Parmenter, from Chelmsford, Essex, says a bite from a noble false widow left him unable to work and struggling with his mental health. 

The 36-year-old, who raps as MC Napz, says the spider struck after he tried to squash it in his recording studio. 

He said: ‘My mate was laughing his head off. He said “it’s gonna come back and do ya” and I was like “yeah, alright”. 

‘We ended up both falling asleep in the studio, and I felt something in the night bite me. It felt like a bee sting. 

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT 

‘When I woke up in the morning, I felt another big sting, and then a false widow ran out of my trouser leg. 

‘Pretty much straight away it all went red, it was a bit uncomfortable. 

‘It got a whole lot worse. My leg swelled up like a balloon. I felt sick, I felt nauseous, I was dizzy, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat.’ 

Following advice from the NHS 111 helpline, Shane drew around the bite with a pen so he would see if it was swelling – but his injury quickly outgrew the markings. 

He said: ‘It went from a little mark on my leg, to massive – it just kept getting bigger and bigger, more swollen and swollen. You could see that it was getting infected.’ 

At Sittingbourne Memorial Hospital, medics cleaned and dressed the wound, and gave him a course of antibiotics. 

But the musician would have to re-dress the wound time and time again as it continued to ooze through the bandages. 

He said: ‘I had about four or five of them put on, and literally within 24 hours of it going on, it was filling up – I’d take them off and it’d burst. 

‘The worse it got was: one night, I was sat on the toilet and I felt it just go ‘pop’ and I felt it seeping through the pad – it was dripping down my leg. 

‘I took the pad off and it was just literally horrific: blood and big lumps of pus oozing out of my leg. It was so painful.’ 

The bite has also unleashed a wave of mental health anguish for Shane, and impacted on his work with his record label, D&B Politics. 

‘It was really hard to cope with,’ he said. 

‘Not being able to go to work and not being able to do my side-job, or even sit at my laptop and do my promotions and release some music. 

‘I’ve got my own studio so I like to get really creative in the studio, but I couldn’t think straight. ‘It’s made me a bit shook of spiders.

‘I wasn’t scared of spiders before but I definitely damn well am now.’ 

Noble false widows are not native to the UK, but are thought to have arrived from the Canary Islands in banana boxes in the late 1800s.

The species gained a strong population in the majority of Britain’s southern counties, and they are now spreading northwards. 

It can be found all year round regardless of climate both indoors and outdoors – from roadside plants and ivy growing on walls to telegraph poles, fence posts and buildings.  

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.

However they’re unlikely to attack unless provoked or trapped between clothes and skin. 

Now Mr Parmenter is speaking out to warn others to leave them be. 

He said: ‘They’re the sort of spider that if you just leave them alone, they will not even bother you. 

‘My advice to other people would be: if you find a false widow in your house, leave it.’ 

• Jason Missey was moving wood in his garden when he felt something like a sting
• Doctors identified Jason’s injury as a spider bite – likely from a noble false widow 

By Michael Havis For Mailonline

Updated: 06:38 EDT, 22 August 2023

An Austrian supermarket was evacuated after the store manager reportedly spotted a banana-loving spider capable of causing permanent erections in men.

The Penny shop in Krems an der Donau, 45 miles west of Vienna, remains closed since Tuesday over fears of the four-inch black and red spider.

Emergency services were called and warn the spider, still at large, may have been a highly venomous Brazilian Wandering Spider, known to reach Europe by hiding in bunches of bananas.

The creature is one of the planet’s most venomous spiders, and bites can be fatal after causing hypothermia, blurred vision, convulsions and, in some cases, erections. The spider’s venom is even being studied for use in erectile dysfunction treatments after it was found that a bite from one of the spiders can give male victims a painful four-hour erection.

An exterminator has been called and the banana crates in the store have been sealed, but reports say the shop will likely remain closed until next week.

A spokesman for the Rewe retail group said that ‘comprehensive cleaning and disinfection measures’ are now under way to prepare the store for reopening. 

But authorities added that: ‘Despite an extensive search, no spiders have been found to date.’

The size and colouring of the ‘unidentifiable’ spider led authorities to believe it was a Brazilian Wandering Spider, capable of emitting a deadly neurotoxin.

Some 4,000 people are bitten by the arachnid each year, with 0.5 per cent of bites leading to death.

Much has been done to develop an effective anti-venom, reducing the likelihood of death. 

But just one bite from the spider can also cause severe cramping and tachycardia, or an increased heart rate. 

The Brazilian Wandering spider appears in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most venomous arachnid. 

Its scientific name – Phoneutria – is Greek for ‘murderess’. 

They are known as the wandering spider because they do not build webs, but instead walk the jungle floor at night looking for prey.

In urban areas, they often take refuge in houses and cars, where they are easily disturbed by humans. 

In 2021, taxi driver Joe Stein found one of the spiders among a bunch of bananas purchased from a Sainsbury’s in West Wickham, Bromley.

He opened the bag to find a two-inch ‘dark mass’ hanging from the fruit and was terrified to see it twitch. 

Mr Stein, from Beckenham, Kent, said: ‘I sort of had to refocus my eyes so I could see his big bony, hairy legs. It was a bit shocking!

‘Obviously I was shocked, my girlfriend was a bit shocked, finding out it was a venomous spider if alive.

‘Luckily I think it was dead, but it was enough to make us both jump and feel on edge.

In 2015, a British family were left fearing one of the spiders had disappeared in their house after noticing a suspicious white spider cocoon on a bunch of bananas.

Michaela Egan from Rainham, Essex posted an image on her Facebook page and friends suggested it could be a Brazilian Wandering spider.

The mother-of-two immediately put it in a sealed bag and returned it to the Rainham Tesco where staff offered her a full refund before sending the banana off to be tested.

The full-time mother said that she could have easily handed the banana to her daughter for her packed lunch.

Fossilised spider found in quarry in Germany is discovered to be 310million years old after being donated to museum

• The spider has been named after Tim Wolterbeek, the man who discovered it 
• It is now being described in a paper as the older of its kind found in Germany  

By Daily Mail Reporter

Published: 20:17 EDT, 9 August 2023 | Updated: 20:17 EDT, 9 August 2023