Renee Peck: Pregnant woman from NZ claims white-tailed spider bite landed her in hospital needing surgery

Australia’s poor innocent white-tailed spider is being blamed for causing ulcers again.

This time, it’s a pregnant woman from New Zealand having a go at the spider.

Renee Peck said she had two surgeries, spent seven nights in hospital and will need a skin graft from what she claims could have been a bite from the Australian white-tailed spider.

The woman from Wellington, NZ told stuff.co.nz her issues began with what looked like a fairly innocuous insect bite on her wrist.

However, the small mark soon became more painful and her arm began to swell.

From there she drove herself to hospital where she needed two surgeries and has been told she will need a skin graft.

Now she has stitches running from her hand to her elbow.

Peck had been bitten by a white-tailed spider in the past and said she saw a spider she believed to be another one on her bed before being bitten.

However, multiple studies by arachnid experts including Australian envenomation expert Dr Geoff Isbister show that white-tailed spiders cannot cause necrotic ulcers.

The WA Department of Agriculture says their bites cause burning pain, swelling and itching.

People who get a white-tailed spider bite should wash them well as some medical studies suggest that cases of blistering ulceration reported after bites may be due to a secondary bacterial infection of the wound.

It’s believed early colonists brought the much maligned but ultimately harmless spider to New Zealand in the 1880s.