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 bledery.

If you're very unlucky and it's venom reaches your bloodstream, the 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?

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

This is Pedro Cardoso.

He's a curator and the principal investigator of arachnids at Luomas, the Finnish Museum

of Natural History.

Have you always been interested in spiders?

...