Reported rise in spider bites

An increase in white-tailed spider bites has been reported by a Northland doctor.
But the spider (pictured) may be earning an unfair reputation - getting the blame for the bites of other spiders, a bug expert believes.
Bugman Ruud Kleinpaste says white-tailed spiders are often accused of administering spider bites, despite never being caught in the act. 
The bites have the potential to develop a flesh-eating bacteria. 
Whangarei GP Dr Vijay Harypursat said he had treated four people with suspected white-tailed spider bites since December 1 - an increase on previous years when one person at most might have been bitten.
His colleagues have also reported a spike, a trend Dr Harypursat puts down to the region's warmer weather.
He treated a 25-year-old woman whose bite abscess needed to be drained, and a 16-year-old boy who suffered similar problems from a suspected white-tailed spider bite on his stomach. The woman found the spider and killed it, but the boy didn't actually see it.
"She told me it was a white tailed spider and I assumed it was. They're quite distinctive, with a big white blob on their bum," Dr Harypursat said.
On another occasion a 51-year-old Whangarei woman was bitten while drying herself with a towel before noticing what she thought was a shrivelled up, dying white-tailed spider in the bath. By the end of the day the bite had grown to the size of a flat ping pong ball.
"The doctor told me it was good I didn't burst the blister because it causes the skin to rot and gangrene to set in," the woman said.
"It could've been quite serious because it's right on top of my heart."
Dr Harypursat said most immune systems would get rid of any symptoms but some people developed a reaction. His advice for those bitten was to disinfect the injury with alcohol or vinegar.
"If the wound becomes red or inflamed and you get a fever after a couple of days, it could be something more sinister."
In the worst-case scenario of "necrotising arachnidism" which affected a small minority of victims, a person might need to be given intravenous antibiotics and rotting tissue would have to be surgically removed.
But  Mr Kleinpaste said reports of white-tailed spider bites were nothing more than an urban myth.
The Ministry of Health didn't have any records of a bite proven to have come from a white tailed spider, and scientific evidence that linked them to symptoms was "rubbish", he said.
"Everyone with a puncture wound or a bite says it's a white tail but in New Zealand we have dozens of other spiders which can give us a pretty nasty bite."
If a person was bitten, they should collect the spider and put it in a jar so a tangible link could be formed, he said.
"That's the only way we'll find out how dangerous they are."
People  imagined white-tailed spiders were poisonous because they ate daddy long legs but nothing could be further from the truth, he said.
 
"Put the two spiders together and the daddy long legs would use its long legs to wrap the white-tail in silk, before giving it an immobilising nip and sucking the juice out of it.
"The white-tailed spider cannot survive as the daddy long legs can see it coming from a mile away."
Mr Kleinpaste said white-tailed spiders were more mobile during warmer weather as their prey, the black house spider, became more available.
The Australian spider was first recorded in New Zealand at Waiwera in 1886. Mr Kleinpaste said the urban myth was born after supposed white-tailed spider victims in Australia were shown with blistering faces on the internet.