Southampton family terrorised by glowing 'zombie spiders'

Anna Baddams, 52, found the skeletal specimen one night last week, and was terrified by the strange glow it was emitting.

She described the fearful-looking creature to be the size of her hand and with round protrusions on the joints of its legs.

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She said: “I’m not scared of black widows but when I opened my shed door and I saw it glow, I was petrified.

“I collapsed onto my neighbour's shed and had heart palpitations for the rest of the evening with anxiety.

“Whenever I walk past the shed, I feel sick. I can’t take it anymore.”

After doing some research online Anna and her daughter, Sanchanadine Baddams, 25, came to the conclusion it could be a spider infected by a zombie fungus.

Known as an entomopathogenic fungus, it is specialised to infect a range of invertebrates - including spiders.

For a while, the infected arachnids live on in a zombie-like state, covered by the fungus, while it eats away at the host and eventually kills it.

Sanchanadine said: “It’s really scary; I think everyone is really freaked out by it. We can’t go into the shed, when you see it at night it’s like it’s glowing.”

Once the fungus is established, the spores from the fungus rapidly infect other spiders nearby.

Since the gruesome discovery last week, Anna has indeed found another spider in the shed which appears to be infected by the fungus.

Anna’s theories were also backed up by the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.

Their spokesman told the Echo: “Our ecologists have taken a look at the images, and they have said the spider may be affected by the zombie fungus.”

Thankfully, the chances of Anna becoming patient zero of a zombie apocalypse are incredibly slim, as the fungus does not infect humans.

Anna said: “I took some photos and nobody can believe it!

“I think we’re all gobsmacked, never in my life have I ever seen anything like this.

“I’d like to call someone out to get rid of it, but I don’t want someone to go into the shed and be bitten by it.

“At night it glows up and I can see it moving around in the shed but if you go up to it, it plays dead.

"It’s truly frightening.”