What This Girl's Parents Thought Was A Bruise Was Actually A Dangerous Spider Bite

Kristine Donovan's five-year-old daughter Kailyn loves to play outside in their backyard — so when a small, dark mark appeared on the little girl's leg, Donovan assumed it was a bruise.

Soon, though, the mark started to grow and turned black. Donovan took her daughter to the hospital, where infectious disease specialists told them that it was from a black widow spider bite, CBS News reports.

"I didn't know what to say," the girl's father, Josh Donovan, said to local news station WCVB. "It's not something you would expect."

Kailyn never even felt the spider bite her, Kristine told CBS News. She is out of the hospital now and taking antibiotics to help the wound heal.

Black widows are the most venomous spiders in North America, according to National Geographic. Their venom is designed to liquify insects and other arachnids, and therefore kills the human flesh surrounding a bite. While a black widow bite won't put a person's life in danger, according to Nat Geo, it can be painful and cause some "internal problems."

Symptoms of a black widow bite can include anxiety, difficulty breathing, painful muscle cramps, headache, high blood pressure, increased saliva, increased sweating, sensitivity to light, muscle weakness, nausea and vomiting, numbness, and restlessness. Pregnant women may also have contractions, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Still, bites like Kailyn's are rare.

“They’re not common, and the places they like to live are places people don’t like to be,” Mike Nelson of Norfolk County Agricultural High School, told CBS News. “Old attics and sheds, those types of places. You don’t want to be so afraid to go outside. The incidents are very rare.”

Some experts even describe the spiders as "shy," according to Live Science. And, more often than not, they'll run away rather than biting a human.