2 People Dead After Swarms of Venomous Spiders Invade Indian Town

Ungoliant

Malleus Aranearum
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2 People Dead After Swarms of Venomous Spiders Invade Indian Town

This suspicious article is making the rounds on the Web.

I am reflexively skeptical of any article about spiders that contains the words "deadly" and "aggressive." (If this spider is swarming, where are the pictures?) Also suspect are claims that "arachnid experts" have not only failed to identify the species, but apparently can't distinguish between families of mygalomorphs.

NewsCore said:
Teams of Indian arachnid experts have flocked to the town, hoping to identify the species, but so far they have drawn a blank.

They say it could be a tarantula, a black wishbone or even a funnel-web spider -- or it could be a whole new species.

One thing they agree on is that it is not native to the area as there is no record of venomous spiders in Assam. The black wishbone and funnel-web are native to Australia.
NewsCore said:
Dr. Anil Phatowali, superintendent of the town's hospital, said they had not administered antivenin as they could not be certain the spider was venomous at all.

He also pointed out other factors may have contributed to the two reported fatalities.

"All the bite patients first went to witch doctors, who cut open their wounds with razors, drained out blood and burnt it. That could have also made them sick," Phatowali said.
 

le-thomas

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If an expert can't tell a tarantula from a "black wishbone" from a funnel-web, they're not an expert in any way, shape or form. The witch doctors killed the people, quite obviously. Hilarious almost.
 

The Snark

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Would somebody give Ungoliant a good hard wap, please? I hate being zapped with paradoxes pre coffee in the morning! :sarcasm:
Upon reading the story I want to roll on the floor in hysterical laughter while feeling sad about the victims.

Does anyone else visualize a bunch of witch doctors running around some primitive village, slashing people with dirty razor blades while screaming 'deadly spiders!'.

I like the oxymoron at the top of the page in that link. Foxnews.com. Fair and balanced.
 

wesker12

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Would somebody give Ungoliant a good hard wap, please? I hate being zapped with paradoxes pre coffee in the morning! :sarcasm:
Upon reading the story I want to roll on the floor in hysterical laughter while feeling sad about the victims.

Does anyone else visualize a bunch of witch doctors running around some primitive village, slashing people with dirty razor blades while screaming 'deadly spiders!'.
I remember living in the village....bites sucked especially being more than 400 from the nearest hospital.

I'm guessing they died from a secondary infection caused by these so called doctors. I have seen some pretty crazy stuff going on in villages when some one gets envenomated.

Still positively iding mygalmorphs is not as easy as some people make it...even the acclaimed Rick West has difficulty positively identifying tarantulas found in the USA (namely the florida vagans/sabulosum).

---------- Post added 06-03-2012 at 06:19 PM ----------

Fear mongering and exaggeration, they went to local doctors who cut them with rusted blades and most likely caused a tetanus infection (been there done that).

Most likely a few people were bit and the myglamorph is aggressive with potent venom but I doubt it leaps on faces. If it does I need to check it out this summer (going back to my homeland) :D

Also I thought people could not be allergic to tarantula venom because it lacks peptides which cause the reaction?
Nice find!
Here is what I wrote on the tarantula portion of this site.
 

The Snark

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Hey wesker12. Since you know the Ganges area well. What highly venomous spiders do you have over there, if any?
BTW, Tetanus can take weeks to debilitate and kill. On the other hand, you have some extremely nasty bacteria in some of those villages that surpass staph on the put you 6 feet under scale.
 

Ungoliant

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Still positively iding mygalmorphs is not as easy as some people make it...even the acclaimed Rick West has difficulty positively identifying tarantulas found in the USA (namely the florida vagans/sabulosum).
I understand that it may be difficult to identify mygalomorphs to the genus or species level, but shouldn't an arachnologist be able to identify them to the family level? An expert should be able to distinguish between a tarantula (family Theraphosidae), a black wishbone spider (family Nemesiidae), and a Sydney funnel-web spider (family Hexathelidae) when examining the actual specimen.
 

wesker12

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Hey wesker12. Since you know the Ganges area well. What highly venomous spiders do you have over there, if any?
BTW, Tetanus can take weeks to debilitate and kill. On the other hand, you have some extremely nasty bacteria in some of those villages that surpass staph on the put you 6 feet under scale.
Your right on the tetanus.
Your absolutely right on nasties that are worse than staph being pretty prevalent.

I haven't been to India (permanently) in over 10 years but from what I recall there are poecilethoeria, several chilobrachy sp. (dyscolus and fimbriatus, andersoni ect), haploclastus, phlogiellus, selencosmia, and thrigmopeus that are commonly found in India that have pretty nasty bites.

I love indian tarantulas - raising C.fimbriatus, P.ornatas, and a few others - have a friend pairing the ornatas soon hopefully I get a good sack soon!

---------- Post added 06-03-2012 at 06:44 PM ----------

I understand that it may be difficult to identify mygalomorphs to the genus or species level, but shouldn't an arachnologist be able to identify them to the family level? An expert should be able to distinguish between a tarantula (family Theraphosidae), a black wishbone spider (family Nemesiidae), and a Sydney funnel-web spider (family Hexathelidae) when examining the actual specimen.
Your right as well but I don't think India has as many arachnologists that specify on spiders as say America, more likely just generalized invert specialists.

They do have a tentative id on the family I believe (selencosmia)
http://m.timesofindia.com/home/envi...-Assam-town-kill-two/articleshow/13753398.cms
 
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Ciphor

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Good ol' witch doctering! Nothing cures a venomous bite like razors and 3rd degree burns! SMH*
 

advan

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I love indian tarantulas - raising C.fimbriatus, P.ornatas, and a few others - have a friend pairing the ornatas soon hopefully I get a good sack soon!
Last time I checked Poecilotheria ornata was native to Sri Lanka.
 

Niffarious

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The original source for this article was The Daily Fail (The Daily Mail). The 'quotes' are all suspect...well, the whole story is. Basically - a bunch of people are claiming spiders, when at best, some people died after being treated by witch doctors. There's no evidence to support it even has anything to do with spiders. There's no evidence to support there were experts in the area.

There's no evidence for this story being true at all...again consider the original source.
 

arachnidsrva

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Honestly I think that the Witch doctors will get it taken care of. They'll probably burn someone in the arm with a hot piece of metal and bury it.

If their arm starts to blister - most likely it was the spider to blame.
 

The Snark

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I am reminded of when I was working on the Burmese border in a medical capacity and some visiting American group was present at some incident I don't clearly recall. Something to do with an outbreak of insects, maybe spiders in a local village. One of the group was a journalist who documented the incident and was going to publish it in some journal. She wanted to quote me as a medical and entomological expert. She was serious and emphatic! It would lend credence and credibility to her article. Like, lady, I'm a paramedic and infection control specialist. What I scientifically know of xxxxx you could put in your coffee cup and still have room for the joe! :coffee:
 

paassatt

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advan

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Southern sri lanka to be exact, but yeah I didn't mention them first but then I slipped and said indian tarantulas because I was excited about the pairing.
Here's a great accurate site about pokies!

http://www.cites.org/eng/cop/11/prop/52.pdf
It's not that accurate considering P. bara = P. subfusca not P. smithi

Even the latest is not fully accurate. Clicky

Sorry for the derail. Thanks for the link pitbulllady!
 

Thomas2015

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I heard earlier that two people died: an old man who was bit by a snake, not a spider, and a boy who died of illness, also not a spider. As a side note, both of them went to faith healers instead of a hospital.
 

cricket54

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The latest news on this that I saw has a pic with it of what looks like a young hairy tarantula, like maybe a chilobrachy type tarantula. They said the spiders are still unidentified and could be a new species. I suspect its a known species that true people who are knowledgeble of tarantulas have not been consulted to see what they are finding. Could be the pic is not even the same spider that bit people. Tarantulas, when they are juveniles are often brown in many asian species. It even looks a lot like a pet tarantula I had for yrs that I never knew what species it was. She lived for yrs and passed away of old age. All I knew was she was some brown asian species of tarantula. Anyway, if its a tarantula and not a funnel web spider, they only have to treat for infection and not any other crazy thing like cutting open the bite and bleeding it out.

Sharon
 
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