FW: a spider bite (please read) this could save ur life

And you thought the brown recluse was bad!!!

Three women in North Florida turned up at hospitals over a 5-day period, all with the same symptoms. Fever, chills, and vomiting, followed by muscular collapse, paralysis, and finally, death. There were no outward signs of trauma. Autopsy results showed toxicity in the blood.

These women did not know each other, and seemed to have nothing in common. It was discovered, however, that they had all visited the same Restaurant (Olive Garden) within days of their deaths. The health department descended on the restaurant, shutting it down. The food, water, and air conditioning were all inspected and tested, to no avail.

The big break came when a waitress at the restaurant was rushed to the hospital with similar symptoms... She told doctors that she had been on vacation, and had only went to the restaurant to pick up her check. She did not eat or drink while she was there, but had used the restroom. That is when one toxicologist, remembering an article he had read, drove out to the restaurant, went into the restroom, and lifted the toilet seat.

Under the seat, out of normal view, was a small spider. The spider was captured and brought back to the lab, where it was determined to be the Two-Striped Telamonia (Telamonia dimidiata), so named because of its reddened flesh color. This spider's venom is extremely toxic, but can take several days to take effect. They live in cold, dark, damp climates, and toilet rims provide just the right atmosphere...

Several days later a lawyer from Jacksonville showed up at a hospital emergency room. Before his death, he told the doctor, that he had been away on business, had taken a flight from Indonesia, changing planes in Singapore, before returning home. He did not visit (Olive Garden), while there. He did, as did all of the other victims, have what was determined to be a puncture wound, on his right buttock.

Investigators discovered that the flight he was on had originated in India. The Civilian Aeronautics Board (CAB) ordered an immediate inspection of the toilets of all flights from India, and discovered the Two-Striped Telamonia (Telamonia dimidiata) spider's nests on 4 different planes!

It is now believed that these spiders can be anywhere in the country.

So please, before you use a public toilet, lift the seat to check for spiders. It can save your life!

And please pass this on to everyone you care about

Comments: Good grief! When we first encountered this hoax back in 1999, the forwarded text warned of a dubious pest called Arachnius gluteus (literally, "butt spider") and boasted so many obvious clues to its own falsity that most readers easily recognized it as bunk. Now someone has rewritten the thing, cramming it full of authentic-sounding details while leaving fewer bread crumbs for the skeptical to follow, effectively reviving a moribund Internet hoax.

There is still no "Dr. Beverly Clark" in any database of physicians, nor a "Journal of the United Medical Association" listed among legitimate scientific journals, nor has a spate of inexplicable deaths been reported in North Florida. There does happen to be an Olive Garden restaurant chain with locations in North Florida, but no mysterious fatalities have been reported at any of those, either.

What's new in more recent variants of the message is the mention of an actual species of spider known as the Two-Striped Telamonia (Telamonia dimidiata). According to entomologists, it is a jumping spider native to Indonesia, but I have yet to find any legitimate sources warning that its venom is deadly to humans. Given that its natural habitat is the rain forest -- a damp but not particularly cold or dark environment -- it seems unlikely the Two-Striped Telamonia would find the undersides of porcelain toilet rims an especially hospitable place to dwell.