The world’s top 6 deadliest spiders

This list has been compiled according to the ugly arachnid’s lethal potential, that means it’s the yield of their venom divided by its potency.

Some spiders have extremely potent venom but lack the ability to deliver a high enough yield of the toxins to do much harm. Other spiders have a relatively weak venom, but deliver a lot of it with their great big ferocious fangs!

#6 Sac spider

(Cheiracanthium punctorium)

Despite its funny sounding name, the yellow sac spider has nothing to do with Chinamen’s genitals. The little buggers are only about 15mm long, but their impressive mandibles can easily penetrate human skin and inject enough of their venom to be potentially lethal.

The spider, Germany’s only seriously toxic arachnid, gets its name from the egg-sacs it builds in long grass which it defends aggressively.

#5 Brown recluse spider/Violin spider

(Loxosceles reclusa)

The brown recluse spider is actually fairly unaggressive, but the little blighter can become tangled in clothes, or bedclothes and does bite on those occasions. And when it does bite the results can be terrible, one woman even had to have a breast amputated due the spider’s necrotizing venom.

#4 Black widow

(Latrodectus species)

Despite its fearsome reputation the infamous black widow fails to top our chart.

However the spider’s highly neurotoxic venom is so famous that the result of a black widow bite has its very own clinical name, Latrodectism. The toxin causes severe pain, headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, kidney failure, paralysis and finally death.