A species of giant African spider has been found in a London primary school after hitching a ride to Britain on children’s bananas.
Dani Zenith, a teaching assistant at the Croydon school, said staff screamed when the hunting spider leapt out of the banana box.
She said: “We are just a regular primary school and we receive free products from our local children’s council.
“We were unwrapping the bananas to distribute to classrooms and popped said spider.”
“He was a hunter and he literally jumped out of the box – he probably jumped a meter.”
A species of giant African spider has been found in a London primary school after hitching a ride to Britain on children’s bananas.
Dani Zenith, a teaching assistant at the Croydon school, said staff screamed when the hunting spider leapt out of the banana box.
“Office staff and women in their 20s were screaming, and a few of us older staff in our 40s were wondering what was going on.
“We luckily caught said spider as it was screaming and panicking. We weren’t afraid, we were rather enthusiastic.
The creature was a Heteropoda venatoria, a member of the huntsman spider family or Sparassidae, renowned for their size.
And if the box is to be believed, she had traveled some 3,000 miles to school from her home in the Ivory Coast.
Ms Zenith, who uses a pseudonym due to the nature of her work, said: “We knew straight away it wasn’t a giant spider you usually find indoors.
“Myself and another member of staff who loves spiders – she has her own book about spiders – wanted to know what spider it was and if it is native to the UK.
“But every time we put him in a Google search, which I know you can’t always count on, he came up as being a hunter.”
Looking for answers, Dani turned to a Facebook page for the Natural History Museum.
It soon turned out that Google was right.
The creature was a Heteropoda venatoria, a member of the huntsman spider family or Sparassidae, renowned for their size.
If the box is to be believed, she would have traveled some 3,000 miles to school from her home in the Ivory Coast.
Heteropoda venatoria, sometimes called the pantropical hunting spider, can have a leg span of up to five inches as an adult.
But this specimen was a juvenile male, estimated by Dani to be six centimeters in diameter.
And although venomous species can cause a painful bite, they are not considered dangerous to humans and survive on a diet of insects.
For the schoolchildren, he was a visitor like no other.
Dani, 45, said: “This was a positive, fascinating and educational discovery for me, and the children and I loved learning about this stowaway.
“It was in no way scary, negative or anything to worry about.”
She added: “We just opened a box of bananas and brought out this magical creature.”
The spider has now been reinstalled.