from www.thesun.co.uk – A TOURIST had a lucky escape after a deadly spider bit him … on the PENIS.

The Canadian backpacker was attacked when he went skinny-dipping in New Zealand.

While he was swimming, a rare katipo spider crawled into the shorts he had left on the beach.

When the man returned, he put them back on and fell asleep — but the trapped spider then nipped him on his manhood.

Within minutes the spider’s venom was causing him to have agonising chest pains, a racing heart, high blood pressure and severe swelling to his penis.

Dr Nigel Harrison, who treated the 22-year-old at Dargaville Hospital, revealed the case in a report for the New Zealand Medical Journal.

He said: “It was a rather nasty, ill-placed bite. The man woke to find his penis swollen and painful with a red mark on the shaft suggestive of a bite.

“He rapidly developed generalised muscle pains, fever, headache, photophobia [light sensitivity] and vomiting.”

The unidentified man’s condition “improved rapidly” after treatment with an anti-venom, but he was kept in hospital for 16 days before being allowed to return to Canada.

The katipo, a Maori word meaning “night-stinger”, is an endangered species in New Zealand found only in the North Island.

The pea-sized spiders are related to the American Black Widow. Bites to humans are rare but two fatalities were recorded in the 1800s.