Bananas

Halloween is approaching, so it is a good time to talk about bananas and grapes. “What’s the connection?” you might wonder.

The answer is one of my favorite creatures, spiders. These incredible arachnids love to hang out in bunches of grapes and tight clusters of banana leaves which make cozy homes complete with tasty, little insects for lunch.

There’s no need to panic here. Your chances of finding one are slim (I know only one person who has), and, if you do, it’s a manageable situation. Here’s the non-scary and scientific scoop about spiders in supermarket produce displays.

First, finding a spider in your fruit can be a good indicator that the fruit is organic. Most bananas and grapes are heavily sprayed with chemical pesticides. Organic farmers often welcome a few resident spiders who feed on the pesky insects that want to munch on their crops.

Next, all fruit coming up from Central and South America is washed, inspected and chilled for shipment. If a spider manages to survive and hitch a ride to a grocery store, the warmth of the store wakes it up. Most of these spiders are huntsmen spiders or redfaced banana spiders. Both are large and both are harmless to humans.

It must be noted that black widow spiders, which are about the size of a grape, love to hang out in grapes. Again, this is not a horrific scenario. Linda Raynor, a spider expert at Cornell University, explains:

“Black widows are really fast in webs, but they’re pretty inadequate on the ground. They really can’t run on the ground at all. Their abdomens are just too big, so they kind of waddle around.” She goes on to say, “Black widows are really shy. They only bite when they perceive a threat, such as a hand ready to grab them.”

I might add that no human has died in the United States in the last ten years from a black widow bite. (Source: Connecticut Poison Control Center, University of Connecticut.) Their bite is dangerous but rarely lethal with treatment.

Since spiders do not attack people unless threatened, Erin M. Mills, the spider guru at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, gives the following suggestion:

“If the spider drops to the ground, try throwing a cup or glass over it and slip a piece of (stiff) paper underneath to trap it inside.” Then put it all in a sealed plastic bag “in the freezer which will kill it, or the refrigerator which will slow it down until you can get it to someone for proper identification.”

And a final word. If you truly want to be scared to death, call a pest control company. They are the fear-mongers supreme, and you might end up signing a year-long contract to live in pesticide hell.

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