A woman was stunned to see an eight-legged spider crawling out of the grapes she had eaten some time back, but was happy it didn't happen while she was eating them.

"If that thing had come crawling out then ... Oh, it would have been more than a shriek," said Dottie Brown, according to AP.

Brown claims she thoroughly rinsed the grapes in her kitchen sink before snacking on them and thinks the spider could have gotten into the grapes in the sink.

Kevin Elfering, dairy and food inspections director for the state's Health Department, said many such cases came to his notice but none that have been reported caused any harm.

Jeff Hahn, a University of Minnesota entomologist who confirmed Brown's invader was a black widow spider after looking at a photograph, said, "It can inflict a painful bite."

The spider's venom is said to attack the central nervous system, but contrary to popular belief the venom rarely proves fatal to a human being.