Spider Colony

Harvard provides a demanding enough environment for students who go there on purpose. But Loxosceles laeta, a poisonous South American spider that matriculated at Cambridge by accident, finds the university a friendly place indeed. Laetas have established a thriving colony in Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology and are multiplying rapidly.

Dr. Herbert Levi, the museum's associate curator of arachnology, and one of the world's leading spidermen, discovered the first laeta lurking in a cabinet of dead myriapods (millepedes and centipedes) in September 1960. Levi promptly identified the male spider, but he paid no further attention, thinking the laeta was a lonely stowaway that had come to town in a shipment of South American zoological specimens. Not until last month did Harvard zoologists realize that laetas had made the museum their U.S. beach head. Delighted students discovered that the basement was alive with venomous spiders, many of them pregnant females sitting by their stringy webs of coarse white silk. By reasonable estimate, at least 1,000 laetas were hiding under boards or in dark corners. They had been feeding on silverfish and other furtive basement insects. Lack of local enemies had probably encouraged the spider population explosion.

The spiders are seldom seen in the public parts of the museum, and the zoologists and students who work in the laboratories are almost pleased to have them around. No one yet has been bitten; laetas are shy and rarely attack man. But a bite is sharp and painful, and the slow-acting poison can be dangerous. For at least 24 hours the victim shows no symptoms; then a swelling appears and the site of the bite turns into a large, purplish pimple that heals slowly. In a few cases there is hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells), which may be fatal.

Proud though he is of his laetas, Dr. Levi knows that they must be eliminated. But he is in no hurry. He points out that millions of dollars were spent in an effort to wipe out the South American fire ants that invaded the southern U.S. in the 1920s. No research was done in advance, and the ants are thriving still. Before attacking the spiders in his museum's basement. Dr. Levi intends to find out whether they have spread to other Harvard buildings in a search for their silverfish food. He wants to learn where the females lay their eggs, why only the males venture out of the basement. Only when he is thoroughly familiar with the habits of Loxosceles laeta will he reluctantly give the order to destroy its Cambridge colony.

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