By Jack Durschlag | Fox News




Three young Bolivian boys were hospitalized earlier this month when they were stung by a black widow spider while tending goats in a small Bolivian village, a report Monday said.

Believing a bite by the spider would give them powers like comic book superhero Spider-Man, the boys, aged 12, 10 and 8 from Chayanta, a town in the Andean region of Potosi, approached the spider on May 14 and poked it with a stick, Virgilio Pietro, epidemiology chief at the Bolivian Ministry of health told Telemundo.

The first symptoms appeared within a few minutes. Their mother rushed them to a local health center. Their health did not improve and they were transferred to a hospital in the town of Llallagua.

When the boys failed to improve overnight, they were taken to the Children's Hospital in La Paz, with muscular pain, sweating, fever and general tremors, Pietro explained. After administering a serum against bites, they improved until they were discharged on May 20, Telemundo reported.

The black widow is not usually aggressive, the report said.