John Savage wrote:
"Vampyre" writes:
I've seen another hypothesis (can't remember where) that suggested it
might be related to bacteria the spider is carrying. ie: The spider
has 'dirty' fangs, and these cause the infection, rather than the
actual venom. No idea if they ever managed to prove/disprove the
theory though.

Sorry, I meant that as implicit in what I wrote -- that the skin-eating
bacteria happens to be on the fangs of various spiders, not any one
particular species. Maybe the white-tail gets the blame a lot because its
habitat preference brings it into contact/conflict with humans more often.
I guess if I were to eat flies which travel from one rotted carcass to
another, the germs could be transferred in any spider in contact with
humans. White tailed do seem to be quite prolific, and its no wonder
that their bites would be the most encountered.
I was writing specifically about what causes these problems. It may be
that these spiders are able to harbour these diseases as a better host
than most.
Who has actually studied them scientifically enough to get real results
on how and why?