German cops hunt HUGE ERECTION-inducing SPIDER

A supermarket in the German town of Bexbach was evacuated last Friday after an employee spotted a potentially-deadly Brazilian spider legging it from a crate of bananas. The eight-legged beast, described as "large, greyish" and "about 13 centimeters long", jumped from the crate and made good its escape under a shelf. A quick …

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it

I can't think of anything more effective at stopping an erection than the sight of a foot-long spider.

Eeeeyaaargh!

[Am]

13cm

Not 13" - so less than half a foot long, so not as bad!

But still, likely to have the same turn off effect.

Icon as extensive flamage is probably the best way to deal with them.

[PacketPusher]

But it is still a honkin' big spider

Less than half a foot, but still really BIG.

[LPF]

@Symon

Occasionally you just have to shout out and "Post of the Week" , take a bow :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Erect-no-phobia

The fear of flaccidity

(Yeah, yeah. I'll get me coat)

[alwarming]

Just 13 inches?

I was bitten by a 17 inch spider.

[Thomas 18]

13 cm long not 13 inches

13 inches would be over a foot long.

[TeeCee]

Is that a misprint?

It leaves you with a massive boner, but out of breath and with muscles like jelly?

Are you sure that's a wandering spider and not a *wanking* spider?

Mine's the one with the bottle of ACME arm muscle vitamins in the pocket.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between centimetres and inches

is over the heads of at least two commentards so far.

[Pete 43]

I've got 12"

But I don't use it as a rule

[Marcus Aurelius]

I have 6"

Everyone accuses me of taking half measures

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

This is not a title

but only if you are talking about linguine (standard, Florentine)

[Anonymous Coward]

dangerous priapism

if the priapism envoked by the venom is not handle properly it will cause permanent damage and there fore a permanent erectile dysfunction.

So it would be the last hard on that you have if you use the poison to 'treat' yourself

[George Nacht]

Is this the same spider

which was used by Jeremy Clarkson to scare Richard Hammond during filming their Top Gear Bolivian Special?

Somehow Mr.Clarkson omitted the blood-redistributing properties of the bite....

Hmmm, intentionally, maybe?

[The Fuzzy Wotnot]

Wow!

A discussion about huge c**ks and suddenly Jeremy Clarkson comes up, is life bizarre or what?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Viagra

"Somehow Mr.Clarkson omitted the blood-redistributing properties of the bite...."

Don't I recall that the same episode included a whole string of viagra gags? That being the case I don't think Clarkson would have missed the opportunity of another erection gag.

[Arctic fox]

Our eight legged friend leaves you (hopefully temporarily) feeling like.....

........"Jake the Peg, diddle-iddle-iddle-um

With his extra leg, diddle-iddle-iddle"

Sorry Rolf!

[Owen Sweeney]

There was an old lady..

who swallowed a spider....

[Russ.T.Starfish]

I am relieved

I got bitten by one of these and thought I had a spider bite fetish....

I guess not then.

[elb]

Some of my own pictures...

from bananaland, if anyone cares to look.

http://phoneutria.us/2009/12/15/lets-talk-poison/

[Anonymous Coward]

That....

....is one ugly little beastie, and enough to put the fear of, er..., spiders into you.

I will add this to my mental list of things to avoid.

[Andus McCoatover]

What's this thing about priaprism and warm countries?

Got this spider from Brazil, that'll give you a stiify, and the (Thai?) "Honeymoon fruit" that has the same efffect.

"Doctor! Take away the pain, but leave the swelling" is an old one. (So is mine...)

[TRT]

I bet...

that's how Peter Parker managed to bag the hot, hot Mary Jane.

[Owen Sweeney]

HOAX!

It seems Lester is pulling my (leg)?

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forums/viewthread/13295/

It was bad enough swalling the spider, but swallowing the hoax is more upsetting.

[Anonymous Coward]

That only raises more questions

From the article:

'Dr. Nunes said: ‘We found the toxin responsible [for the erections] and performed experiments using hypertensive rats which have severe erectile dysfunction. '

The first question being - how the hell do you know a rat has erectile dysfunction?

And back to spider - ye gods, the last time there was any spider that big it was clamped to Lis Slayden's back.

[Mark 65]

World's most poisonous?

Can we have arachnid death matches? First one between this and a Sydney funnelweb spider. Both aggressive, both attack repeatedly, both seem to have small man/you staring at my pint issues.

Seconds out, round one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Banana Spiders

I used to live near a banana warehouse and from time to time we would spot big spiders in the area. I mean really big. We were always told they were harmless and indeed looking them up proved them to be so.

How accurate was the identification of this beast? Did somebody spot it briefly or did they get a photograph? I fail to see how a brief glimpse of a few seconds could result in an accurate identification.

I think it more likely that the spider in question would be one of the harmless banana spiders and it's also pretty likeley that it would fail to survive for long in the northern european climate.

[Fred Flintstone]

The problem is..

.. that nobody can take the chance of being wrong on this one. Imagine stating "oh, it's OK guv, they're not venomous" and then finding a clothed pool of jelly with a d*ck sticking out of it later.

That would really not look good on the CV.

[elb]

two different "banana" spiders

You must be talking about Nephila clavipes, which is a very large garden orb weaver that is completely harmless. They're commonly referred to as banana spiders. I have no idea why.

It's unlikely that this spider would be found in a fruit box, as they just hang out on their webs and don't get out much.

The "banana" spider in the article is very likely to be a Phoneutria sp., which is sometimes called banana spider because it's so often found in banana shipping boxes. The phoneutria spiders don't make webs, and they like a warm and dry place to hang out. The shacks where banana growers leave the bananas to ripen is the ideal place.

[Mips]

It is amazing..

.. what you can spot when you are wasting drinking time on a Friday afternoon

Also amazing that as they fled they could measure the beast as 13cm long.

What's all this centimetre business; these units do not exist officially, even in Germany. On the other hand they do recognise the Olympic sized swimming pool, well any size swimming pool actually.