Antibes: Horror scene in the emergency room, a woman arrives with a spider in her ear!

His story could be straight out of a nightmare. According to Nice-Matin, a woman from Antibois in her sixties presented to the emergency room a few days ago claiming that a spider had entered her ear and had stung her several times. What was the surprise of the caregivers to discover, lodged in its conduit... A tarantula.

The emergency doctors at the Arnault Tzanck institute in Antibes thought they were dealing with a Marseillaise. A few days ago, they received a sexagenarian assuring them that they had terrible headache since a spider had entered his ear , reported on Monday Nice morning .

The spider has 'taken refuge' in the ear of a woman

'When I woke up, my daughter said to me, 'Mom, you have a spider on your cheek.' I then pushed the bug which immediately took refuge in the nearest orifice, my ear . We tried, with an enema of lukewarm water, to get her out, but in vain. She stung me several times. So my daughter drove me to the emergency room' , she tells the nurse who takes care of her. Unconvinced, he finally called the doctor on duty, who, through the magnifying lens of his otoscope, clearly saw the hairy beast. After many attempts by the caregiver, the spider finally came out of this woman's ear canal, in shock , recount Nice morning .

The animal identified as an Andalusian tarantula

Because if having a spider stuck in your ear would already be enough to make some people turn away, it wasn't just a grim reaper or something. harmless arthropod. According to the nursing staff, the ear of the sexagenarian served as a refuge for an Andalusian tarantula, or Macrothele calpeiana . This spider, which is generally 20 to 30 millimeters long, lives commonly in western Andalusia, Spain, North Africa, but also in the south of France. According the site of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), it has already been spotted not far from Biarritz, Toulouse, Nîmes and Valence.

A very 'poisonous' species

According to the arachnologist and lecturer at the MNHN, Christine Rollard, interviewed in June 2022 by the newspaper West France , the Andalusian tarantula would have been accidentally brought back to France about 20 years ago with the transport of century-old olive trees , in which she takes refuge.

Although small, it is ' one of the most poisonous European tarantulas ' , assure the Naturalist Observatory of Mediterranean Ecosystems . Luckily, the patient only comes out with acute otitis. She is being treated with antibiotics and her life is not in danger. Those of the tarantula, on the other hand...