Government has warned doctors at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital to be on the lookout for Black Widow spider bites after one of the poisonous arachnids was found at a Southampton construction site on Friday.

While dangerous, the bites are rarely deadly in healthy individuals but small children and the elderly are at greater risk. This is not the first time Black Widows have been found in Bermuda, but Government Entomologist Claire Jessey said yesterday she is more concerned this time because she has been unable to pinpoint how the spider arrived on the Island.

And she said she did not know how long the spider was at the site or ?whether it was one of one, one of 100, or one of 1,000?.

?We have had previous reports of Black Widows in Bermuda in the past ? four in the last eight years,? Ms Jessey said. ?But they were always associated with shipments of fruit and vegetables.

?We had one in a shipment of bananas, one in some grapes and two others in grocery stores or in the loading bay of grocery stores.

?In all of those cases I could directly see how the spiders came in and leave the site feeling confident that the incident was an isolated one. But this case is different. It might have arrived on a palate of construction material but the workmen said that nothing they used to build that house had been imported.?

She added: ?In ranking the danger of spiders, Black Widows are number one but Brown Recluse is number two and they are very common in Bermuda.?

But Brown Recluses are considered less likely to bite. ?Like their name they are very reclusive,? Ms Jessey said. ?People do not come across them often but they can give people nasty bites that, when infected, grow ulcerous.?

She has now warned the hospital to be on lookout for Black Widow bites and advised anyone who thinks they have been bitten by a Black Widow to immediately go to KEMH. The Black Widow is jet black in colour and approximately an inch and a half in length with an hourglass figure underneath.

Yesterday, KEMH chief of emergency Dr. Edward Schultz said he has never heard of anyone being bitten by a Black Widow in Bermuda but the hospital is equipped to handle bites.

?Death (from a Black Widow bite) in a normally healthy individual is very rare,? Dr. Shultz said. ?But is more likely in very small children and elderly victims. Most people suffer very severe pain at the site. We would administer pain medicine and anti-venom in selected cases.?

At this stage, Ms Jessey said it is not clear whether there are more Black Widows lurking.

Bermuda Pest Control?s Walter Saul said the area where the spider was found was spayed with insecticide yesterday.

He said a workman stepped on a spider egg sack the size of a marble ?so there was are really good chance that the babies are dead.?

But Ms Jessey said that Black Widows can ?lay several egg masses? and that some spiderlings were found at the site. The juvenile spiders were frozen and will be sent abroad for species identification. The adult Black Widow spider is now at the Bermuda Aquarium Museum and Zoo for ?educational purposes?, she said.