There are more than 1,700 species of spider in Spain but only three are in way harmful to us. By far, the most dangerous is the black widow (Latrodectus tredecimguttatus) which gives a medically-complex and painful bite though it is not fatal. They are commonest in Valencia and Andalucía, and they are a problem in the greenhouse estates of Almeria . The sting of the black widow, along with hysteria, was often responsible for the condition of tarantism, though at the time the much less-potent but more fearsome-looking true tarantula or wolf spider (Lycosa tarantula) was blamed. Wolf spiders are no relation to the much larger bird spiders of South America which have inherited the name, and their sting is weak. The hysteria began at some time during the Middle ages in Taranto in Southern Italy from where it spread out, reaching Spain in the 15th century. Victims were cured by making them dance to a frenzied music: the tarantela. As late 1875, the Spanish Royal Faculty of Medicine was recommending such antics. Other techniques for expelling the spider demon were less kind to the victim. In Corsica , the victim was placed in a sweltering oven, while on the Island of Hierro in the Canaries sufferers were treated with 'internal doses of human excrement'. Much more on things that can bite and sting you here: