A family tradition turned up a frightening surprise this fall when the Del Gaudio family made their annual batch of wine; a black widow spider was crawling among their grapes.
Black as night with a red hourglass stamp on its belly, the venomous arachnid likely made its way into the Laval home after grapes in California were packed into a refrigerated truck, where the creature went into mini-hibernation, awakening once the crates were opened in Quebec.
Carlo Del Gaudio was helping his father with the wine when he spotted the eight-legged menace.
"I was pushing the grapes into the machine helping him out, I noticed there was something walking on top of the grapes and I told him, stop right there," he said. "I knew right then and there it was a black widow."
Of the thirty kinds of black widow spiders, only three are venomous. Even then, it's generally only the elderly and the very young who are at risk.
"For humans, black widows have very big and bad reputation but in fact they are not very dangerous," said Marc Bonneau, the arachnid expert at the Montreal Insectarium.
A black widow infestation is an unusual sight in Montreal, said grape importer Claudio Porco.
"That's really uncommon. It's not something I've seen in 30 years," he said.
Though most are not dangerous, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said anyone who finds any suspicious looking spiders packed in produce should dispose of it without touching it or its web. It also asks consumers to report to the CFIA any spiders found.
Del Gaudio said he's not prepared to dispose of the insect and hopes to give it a more permanent home at the Insectarium.
He's currently keeping the creepy crawly it in a mason jar, feeding it beetles and small insects.
"It's actually very interesting. It's like watching a National Geographic program right in my own living room," said Del Gaudio.
