Man dies from spider bite, animals feed on man...

[TekWarren]

A friend sent me this...

http://www.planetsave.com/blog/2007/...y-to-die-ever/

[Schlyne]

This article is highly influenced by the media. They found him in the apartment and supposedly he's been bitten by a widow spider. For all they know he had a heart attack, died and then the animals fed on him. Regardless, one shouldn't let animals free roam like that.

[xdeus]

I think it's pretty easy to determine if the cause of death was from a black widow bite, but what got me was this quote:

several snakes, a gecko lizard called Helmut and several thousand termites had gorged on his body.

Since when do snakes, geckos and termites gorge themselves on a human body?

[darkangel]

It's not so shocking. They made it sound so dramatic and terrifying. I fully expect that if for some reason I died alone in my house, and no one found me for a while, my dogs would eat me.

[frankykeno]

Oh I think that's a bit of a overly dramatic news thing most likely. Simple fact is when anything dies bugs show up and we become nothing more than a free buffet. I highly doubt it was anything as bad as they are making out and even if it was it's highly unprofessional to share those things with the media. There should be far more respect for this man's family than to gossip to the press about a decendent's corpse.

[Jae iLL]

I seen that a couple days ago, he shouldn't have been letting those kinds of animals just roam his house freely like that.

[JLC]

I wonder if this is becoming some kind of urban myth...or if they just recycled an old story.....or if something so similar could happen twice. I distinctly remember reading a story almost identical to this one (don't remember the mention of termites...but the lizards, scorps, t's, and snakes were all there) about a year ago or so.

[Shadowspider]

As one who has kept true spiders (yes, black widows among them) tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, etc. for years... I can tell you right now this story is made up.

Police broke in to Mark Voegel’s apartment to find spider Bettina along with 200 others, several snakes, a gecko lizard called Helmut and several thousand termites had gorged on his body.

First of all, *no* spider "eats" people. This BS is based on the Hollywood fairy tale that spiders "drink blood".

A police spokesman said: “It was like a horror movie. His corpse was over the sofa.

“Giant webs draped him, spiders were all over him. They were coming out of his nose and his mouth.

Anyone seen the movie Arachnophobia? This is taken dirrectly from that movie.
In addition, black widows do *not* spin "giant webs". That would be orb weavers.

“Larger pieces of flesh torn off by the lizards were scooped up and taken back to the webs of tarantulas and other bird-eating spiders.”

True spiders nor tarantulas eat dead flesh. This is also the fairy tale from someone's completely uneducated imagination. This is along the lines of "I can feed my Theraphosa blondi (that's a Goliath bird eater tarantula by the way) some raw chicken breast".

This entire story is a farse and I can just about gaurentee you all there is NO truth to this at all.

In addition, *if* the guy actually *did* let his "pets" roam free, the widows, well, spiders in general and tarantulas would eat EACHOTHER first before they'd eat the guy. Very few true spiders or tarantulas are communial and ALL are canabolistic. Even if they did choose to congrate in close proximity to each other, the average human body would be too close for their comfort and they would fight and kill each other for territory.

Also, unless this guy had a severe allergy to true spider venom, a bite from a black widow would *not* kill him. It would hurt like a son of a gun and possibaly even make him sick... if he did not receive medical treatment, but unless he went into anaphlatic (sp?) shock... he would not have died from a widow bite.

[Nikki0326]

Since when do snakes, geckos and termites gorge themselves on a human body?

It must be those special flesh-eating snakes, geckos, and termites I read about

[frankykeno]

As one who has kept true spiders (yes, black widows among them) tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, etc. for years... I can tell you right now this story is made up.
First of all, *no* spider "eats" people. This BS is based on the Hollywood fairy tale that spiders "drink blood".Anyone seen the movie Arachnophobia? This is taken dirrectly from that movie.
In addition, black widows do *not* spin "giant webs". That would be orb weavers. True spiders nor tarantulas eat dead flesh. This is also the fairy tale from someone's completely uneducated imagination. This is along the lines of "I can feed my Theraphosa blondi (that's a Goliath bird eater tarantula by the way) some raw chicken breast".

This entire story is a farse and I can just about gaurentee you all there is NO truth to this at all.

In addition, *if* the guy actually *did* let his "pets" roam free, the widows, well, spiders in general and tarantulas would eat EACHOTHER first before they'd eat the guy. Very few true spiders or tarantulas are communial and ALL are canabolistic. Even if they did choose to congrate in close proximity to each other, the average human body would be too close for their comfort and they would fight and kill each other for territory.

Also, unless this guy had a severe allergy to true spider venom, a bite from a black widow would *not* kill him. It would hurt like a son of a gun and possibaly even make him sick... if he did not receive medical treatment, but unless he went into anaphlatic (sp?) shock... he would not have died from a widow bite.

Thanks for the informative and common sense post. It always amazes me that this sort of stuff get passed around as "real" news when it's usually a complete pile of doo doo.