University of Michigan library temporarily closed after venomous spiders found in basement
Spiders, man!
A library at the University of Michigan had a case of the creepy-crawlies this week after three venomous spiders were found in a basement storage area.
The spiders, Mediterranean recluses, were found in a non-public storage area of the Shapiro Undergraduate Library at the Ann Arbor campus back in January. However, the building was closed Sunday and treated by pest control on Monday out of an abundance of caution.
While the spiders didn’t pose much of a threat, their presence alone was notable, according to University of Michigan-Dearborn professor Anne Danielson-Francois, who identified an adult male spider that was caught in a glue trap at the library. The spiders have only been seen in fewer than two dozen states before and this marked the first known case of the spiders in Michigan that the professor was aware of.
“You’re really unlikely to be in any kind of danger unless you have to be in close contact,” she told the Detroit Free Press. “But if you’re the plumber crawling through a crawl space that has a lot of these spiders, then you could be bit, and that would be concerning. But just walking around the library stacks, it’s a very, very low risk.”
While those bites could result in rashes or swelling and even tissue death, Danielson-Francois said the spiders preferred places like caves in nature and basements or boiler rooms when indoors.
With News Wire Services
