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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

Luomus Spiders (Classic)

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Places & Travel, Society & Culture

4.61.8K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Finnish Museum of Natural History in Helsinki has been home to an infestation of Chilean recluse spiders for more than 50 years.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

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

0:06.6

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

0:11.6

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

0:19.9

or even creeping through the darkest recesses of deep

0:24.7

closets.

0:26.5

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

0:31.8

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

0:41.3

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

0:45.3

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

0:51.3

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

0:57.1

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

1:06.3

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

1:16.1

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

1:25.4

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

1:31.2

after this.

1:47.2

What kind of arachnids do you study?

1:52.5

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

1:54.4

This is Pedro Cardoso.

2:02.7

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

2:11.5

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

2:18.3

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

2:24.3

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

...

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