I'd like to introduce you to the Chilean recluse spider.

It's one of the most dangerous spiders in the world.

It likes to live inside pockets of darkness, scuttling beneath rocks, crawling inside logs,

or even creeping through the darkest recesses of deep

closets.

If one of them bites you, it can cause skin necrosis.

That's your skin dying, turning blistered, then black and leathery.

If you're very unlucky and its venom reaches your bloodstream, this spider's bite can be deadly.

And one last important thing you need to know about the Chilean recluse spider.

There are countless of them, living on the ground floor of a natural history museum

in Finland, in cupboards, in crevices, and crawling behind the walls themselves.

I'm Sarah Wyman, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and terrifying places.

Today, we're going to learn about the infestation of Chilean recluse spiders at the Finnish Museum of Natural History in Helsinki.

How they got there and why no one seems particularly fussed about getting them out of there

after this.

What kind of arachnids do you study?

All kinds of spiders, so I'm not picky.

This is Pedro Cardoso.

He's a curator and the principal investigator of arachnids at Luomus, the Finnish Museum of Natural History. Have you always been interested in spiders? Not always. I was already on my third or fourth year of my

decencyate degree. And I was still not sure what to do with my life.

Pedro grew up in Portugal, and it was during his studies that he says he found out there were,

get this, zero spider experts in the country of Portugal.

...