Not one, but two black widow spiders found in a bag of grapes from a grocery store

It sounds like something out of a horror movie, but for one woman the situation was very real.

When she reached into a bag of grapes for something to eat, rather than plucking fruit from the vine she discovered two black widow spiders, nbc41.com reported.

The Omaha, Neb. woman made the discovery July 19. The next day she took them to Fontenell Forest, a nearby wildlife sanctuary.

“There’s a male down here. And then the female’s bigger with the red dot on her abdomen that makes it so obvious to tell that she’s a black widow,” Fontenelle Forest spokesperson Molly Mullen said, according to KETV.

Black widows are recognizable by the red hourglass shape on their abdomen, pestworld.org says.

A post on Fontenelle Forest’s Facebook page said discovering a black widow in a bag of grapes from the grocery store happens more often than you might have thought.

“This is super common, with hundreds of Americans finding these females in the grapes each year,” the post reads.

This discovery marked the third black widow found in Omaha recently.

Another woman discovered a black widow in a bag of grapes she had purchased, and ultimately also brought the spider she nicknamed “Grapes,” to Fontenelle Forest, KMTV reported, which was confirmed by the wildlife sanctuary on Facebook.

In an interview with KETV, Mullen placed odds on the likelihood of the “super common” incidents. She said annually, 700 to 800 people in America will find a black widow in their grapes.

To Mullen’s point in 2013, grocery store chain Aldi pulled its entire stock of grapes from Milwaukee stores after a black widow was discovered, foodsafetynews.com reported, adding that similar discoveries were made in supermarkets in Michigan, Missouri and Minnesota.

Hy-Vee, the grocery store chain where the Nebraska black widows were found, did not pull grapes from all of its stores, but said it did refund the woman her money in addition to inspecting their produce — again, according to KETV.

In a statement on the incident to KETV, Hy-Vee said, “As pesticide use continues to decline, from time to time, retailers and consumers will find a spider or spiderweb on their produce. Hy-Vee’s grape suppliers have implement several procedures to help control spiders and ensure that they do not make it into distribution channels. ... This particular incident is an unfortunate situation.”

Black widows are the most venomous spiders in North America, per food safetynews.com. And a female black widow’s venom is 15-times more potent than that of a rattlesnake, according to cbsnews.com.

But “black widows are not actively aggressive unless squeezed,” Fontenelle Forest’s Facebook post said.

That’s good in most circumstances, but reaching into a bag of grapes to pluck one, could initiate that squeezing. That’s why Fontenelle Forest urged people to “wash your grapes.”

Those bitten by a black widow might have the following symptoms: fever, increased blood pressure, sweating and nausea, according to pestworld.org, which says fatalities are unlikely, as long as proper medical treatment is sought in a timely manner.

In South Carolina, there are three species of widow spiders: the southern black widow, the northern black widow and the brown widow.

“All the widow species are fairly reticent to bite,” said Eric Benson, Ph.D. professor and extension entomologist at Clemson University told the Island Packet. “But people do get bitten by them. If I were bitten by one I would go see the doctor, but the chances of you dying are almost zero.”

Southern black widows are also found in North Carolina, where they are one of two poisonous spiders, along with the Brown recluse, owlcation.com reported.

This story was originally published July 23, 2018 at 7:40 AM.