And while this may not necessarily mean that hobo spiders rarely bite people, there is not sufficient evidence to prove that they are "common biters," either, Vetter said. But over the three-year period, the researchers found only one such report. "Spiders are a very handy scapegoat to blame all the time" because, historically, people have had a negative view of spiders, Vetter told Live Science.Īt the outset of the study, the researchers had wanted to look at a series of cases of hobo spider bites. The victim of the hobo spider suffered only pain, redness and twitching.
It turned out that none of the spider bites in the sample, including the one inflicted by the hobo spider, resulted in dermonecrosis - the death of skin cells. Unlike some previous studies on spider bites, the researchers looked only at reports in which people actually caught the spiders that bit them, and submitted the eight-legged beasts as evidence. The researchers examined the symptoms of the spider bite victims. Different spider species perpetrated the bites, with one coming from a hobo spider. In the new study, Vetter and his colleagues examined 33 reported, verified spider bites that occurred in Oregon over three years. The spiders build funnel-shaped webs in dark, moist areas, and are fast runners - moving up to 3 feet (1 meter) per second. They have since spread through the Pacific northwest. The brown and grey spiders are native to Europe, and were probably introduced into the Seattle area in the 1920s or early 1930s. Hobo spiders are moderately large, measuring about a quarter-inch to a half-inch (7 to 14 millimeters) in body length, with a 1- to 2-inch (27 to 45 mm) leg span.