Canary Islands Bananas are not to blame

Recent reports of the biting spider - Steatoda nobilis, commonly known as the false black widow - terrorizing the south of Britain, claim that the "The spider is native to the Canary Islands but arrived in England in around 1870 through bananas sent to Torquay." This information, it would appear, is not quite accurate.

Quoting Antonio Machado, a biologist who has spent a good part of his life classifying Canarian "bugs", this report by Bernardo Sagastume in ABC, tells us that, "It is probable that they are from here, although they could also come from Madeira, as ships in those days called at both archipelagos".

What he does not believe, however, is that the banana can be to blame, because, as he says, "there are spiders in plantations, but they are not the ones that bite."

Besides that, Machado adds that the spider is not exclusively endemic to the Canary Islands, nor is it a native and was probably introduced into the Canary Islands.

It's a strange thing, but I can remember when I was a kid, growing up in England that adults were always concerned - really concerned - about spiders in bananas. Of course, this was not something I questioned at the time, but I wonder if they were still reacting to inaccurate 1870 reports (mere assumptions) over the spider's arrival?

Es canaria y le teme Inglaterra