At least four people have been bitten in the last few weeks by a potentially lethal spider whose venom can literally eat away living tissue.

Bermuda is home to one of the few spiders actually dangerous to humans - the Brown Recluse Spider - which in recent weeks has been responsible for a significant number of visits to doctors' offices and hospital, a health official said.

The Brown Recluse Spider has been associated with significant disease and even reports of death, usually in small children.

Of the incidents reported in Bermuda in recent weeks, just one attack took place indoors.

The Brown Recluse Spider, which is no bigger than a 25c ‘quarter', is generally not aggressive and bites only when threatened - usually when pressed up against the victim's skin and have been known to crawl into clothing and shoes.

The spider prefers dark, warm, dry environments such as attics, closets, porches, barns, basements, woodpiles, and old tires and according to an entomology website, most bites occur only in the summer months.

Local resident Fiona Doe has sent out an e-mail to friends and family warning of the dangers of these spiders in Bermuda after her husband Robert was bitten this week.

In the e-mail, which was sent to The Royal Gazette, Mrs. Doe said she realised her husband had been bitten when the bite mark ballooned in size and developed “interesting colours”.

Mrs. Doe went on-line and found a website which suggested treating the bite with nitro-glycerine patches and antibiotics.

The venom works by constricting blood vessels so that the bite site rapidly loses circulation and the flesh dies.

She said nitro-glycerine dilates the blood vessels so it limits the death of the tissue.

“We went to our doctor with both the rapidly expanding bite and the information off the Internet, and he was treated,” she said.

Luckily the bite stopped expanding and the secondary swelling went down.

However, she said she was worried that doctors and pharmacists were not aware that a venomous spider lives in Bermuda and may not know how to treat bites.

She said the bite was relatively painless when inflicted and started off as a red patch which expanded rapidly, becoming grey in the middle with dark rings, painful, hard and swollen.

Mrs. Doe said her husband also complained of a fever and headaches.

“Bobby's bite site is still nasty, but not expanding,” she said.

“This is a potentially very serious situation should anyone be bitten. Tissue loss and gangrene are not unusual - don't take it lightly!”

To avoid being bitten by these nasty arachnid, avoid keeping clothing on the floor and store clothing and shoes inside plastic containers, and shake out all clothing that has been in a hamper before wearing or washing.