A Missouri woman said she found a black widow spider inside a package of seedless grapes, with her grandchildren almost touching the venomous arachnid. While the children were snacking their mother asked: “What’s this hairy stuff all over these grapes?”
The ominous-looking spider with the balloon-shaped underside is shy by nature and normally keeps to tight, dark spaces near the ground, often wood piles and the underside of porches. While rarely fatal, their bites are painful and pose a greater risk to children, entomologists report.
In July, a Connecticut woman told news crews about one of the spiders crawling out of a bag she was sharing with her 11-year-old son. Also in July, a Nebraska woman found two black widows, a male and a female, inside her grape package. In 2015, a couple from Philadelphia had the same experience Kanter described: bringing home a black widow.
