False widow spiders force school in Britain to close
| London
Creepy crawlies, in the form of a venomous聽spider聽infestation, has forced a school in Britain to close a week before Halloween.
The Dean Academy, a secondary school in southwest England's Gloucestershire, said it was closing Wednesday to get rid of the false聽widow聽spiders. The聽spiders聽are commonly mistaken for their relative, the black聽widow聽spider, whose bite can be fatal.
The school said no one has been bitten by the聽spider聽but local health authorities have advised it to close for the day to deal with the infestation.
Experts say the Steodata nobilis, a species of the聽false聽widow, are becoming more common in the U.K. and are the most dangerous of the 12 species of biting聽spiders聽known in Britain.
But they stress that聽spider聽bites are rare in Britain, and in most cases the symptoms are mild.聽
"They're not aggressive聽spiders, they don't seek out humans," said David Lalloo, a professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
