AUSTRALIA — A man in Australia has been dubbed “Spider Man” after a bizarre turn of events during a trip to Bali.
A mark on Dylan Maxwell’s belly may look like a gruesome scar, but he says it’s actually the trail left by a spider that burrowed under his skin.
The tiny tropical spider burrowed through a small appendix scar and traveled up into his torso, leaving a red, scar-like trail from his naval to his chest. It survived there for three days.
Maxwell was visiting Indonesia when he says noticed what he thought was a scratch about an inch-long.
He went to a doctor who told him it was a small insect bite, but the trail kept growing up toward his chest.
Maxwell described it as “a very searing, hot searing burning sensation. It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
When it started to blister, he says he got worried.
That’s when they realized the spider has crawled in through the scar.
He says doctors were able to pull the spider out. The spider was placed in a container and shipped off for testing.
Still, many are unconvinced because Dylan has not produced records of the account. And experts say that there aren’t really accounts of spiders burrowing inside people skins. Snopes.com has some discussion about Dylan’s claim.
I think this is extremely suspect, unusual, and likely not possible. Simply put: it is not plausible and I can think of no valid reason why a spider might ‘crawl beneath skin through a scar’. The claim that it was ‘feeding and moving up through the scar tissue’ defies logic and defies what we know about the biology of spiders. I am also skeptical because the ‘evidence’ (the spider itself) is not presented.
