RResidents in Japan

⚠️ Redback Spider Spotted in Tokyo ⚠️

Excuse the emoji, but I’m a little shocked. This might be old news so the mods can delete, BUT

I live in central Shinjuku and just this weekend I found a bunch of Redback spiders in my little garden patch.

“What’s the big deal about Kumo-chan?” you ask, well these little guys are very **VENOMOUS** (thanks for pointing out the typo!) and getting bitten is very painful. See [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redback_spider)

There are a lot of little kids in my area, so I very quickly printed up a sign in Japanese and English to tell them not to touch.

I don’t know if the antivenom is available readily in Japan, so I’m quite alarmed 😳 Are there any other Australian nasties that have made their way up here?

Anyway, so far I’ve had two Mums thank me (I popped my Banchi on the sign), and they suggested I share elsewhere. Can’t believe I didn’t think of Reddit right away..

TL;DR: Watch your kids when letting them play outside/in the garden. If you see a Redback, get the bug spray immediately and do not touch them.

35 comments

  4. Great, another country I have to move away from. Those Mars colonies can’t come soon enough.

  5. I know they’ve been in Osaka for ages. They hitch a ride in the dunnage and crates in cargo containers.

  7. Looks like Japan is already prepared for redback spiders…

    Toilet seats rise automatically here.

  9. > these little guys are very poisonous

    So no problem as long as you don’t eat them?

  11. >Australian nasties

    I saw a bunch (flock? What’s the collective noun?) of individuals meeting that description last time i was in Niseiko

  12. They’ve been around Kansai for a while. Friend of mine had a bunch in his garden and garage. Apparently you can call the city/ward and they’ll send someone to get rid of them for free. At least that’s what happened with him the first time. Later he couldn’t be bothered anymore and just killed them himself.

  13. Redbacks are not particularly dangerous. Deaths from spiderbites of any species are rare in general and the last confirmed death from a redback bite in Aus was in 1979. The black widow spider is part of the same genus and according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, there hasn’t had a reported fatality in the US since 1983 despite thousands of reported bites per year. People who died from these bites in the past were typically those who were immunocompromised or had a severe allergic reaction and overall the risk to humans is not particularly different to that of a bee or wasp sting, both of which are far more common.

    Most kids should hopefully have enough sense not to mess around with biting or stinging athropods but even for the dumbasses who do (like myself) the symptoms are fairly minor in the majority of cases. Antivenom is available in Japan so higher risk cases like small children or the elderly can be treated but it should be noted that even in Australia antivenom is only used in a small percentage of bites.

  15. Me from Europe: “Thanks for the reminder that spiders are not simply your cheap mosquito killing friend.”

  16. I remember we had warnings up about these around the campus in Kyushu when I did my study abroad in 2015.

  18. I try to save every spider I find in the house. That’s been my unofficial job everywhere I’ve worked in Japan as well.

    Wouldn’t try that with a Redback, though. Anything that looks like a Black Widow gets the chop.

  20. Only saw a redback once in Australia over 9 years of staying there.
    Seen 3 times already here!

  23. Gosh that’s all we need. We had a snake the other day in our tiny, first floor mansion garden. Small, but still. I thought I’d left all the wildlife back home.

    Choose your balcony slippers carefully! No closed in slippers! Light colours so you can see the contrast. And be cautious grabbing onto pot plant rims.

  24. I have seen some signs posted at parks here in Fukuoka city too.
    I remember about 20 years ago the first sightings in Osaka.
    Seems they have spread out a bit.

  25. Last year my son was playing at the local park and I spotted a centipedes in the kid’s sand box. These nasties were under the sand. It was as long as my index finger with black body and brown legs.

  26. “Kumo-chan“ 😂かわいい
    Almost makes me forget that I hate spoders ._.

  27. I have seen signs outside public toilets in the park in Yokohama warning about poisonous spiders. I think the authorities would be interested to know about them if they are not already aware of them.

  28. Good to see that venomous Aussie arachnids have gone global!

    Damn these little critters suck though. I remember in ‘Straya my son (who likes to cry wolf) was saying he REFUSED to use his lego because he’d seen a redback climb into his lego box ‘a long long time ago… maybe yesterday’.

    While putting on a sarcastic face and mocking his comment I dumped his lego out to say ‘seee… no redbacks!’ Then I saw web and one crawled outta a piece of lego. I was like ‘daaaamn, never mock your kids again!!! This is horror story kinda stuff!’

    Then there’s the story about me being stuck outside in the workshop, screaming out for my wife (who’d gone to sleep) to get some bug spray because there was a funnel-web blocking my path back to the house. I froze for almost an hour, then finally found the nerves to run past it. Hec-tic!!!

  29. A couple of years back I hiked up Mt.Fuji along the Gotemba trail. At the 5th station in the start of the trail, the public toilets were swarming with these things.

  32. Bug spray is cool and all but as a mechanic I prefer to use my ample supply of brake cleaner. For those who don’t know, brake cleaner is designed to leave an almost sterile finish on brake rotors, free of any grease or debris. A good spray or two and any bug you point it at is done real quick.

  35. I have these in the USA where I live if a black widow is the same species as that and I’ve never met anyone whose had a problem with them let alone even see one in there life. I have a friend who keeps one as a pet haha

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