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Poecilotheria tigrinawesseli

BedroomEyzOfBlu

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
135

I had a very interesting encounter this past weekend with our 2.75" Poecilotheria tigrinawesseli. We were doing some ventral shots for another thread and at 1/2 time (this was pretty much an all day effort to the tune of some 200+ pics), I took over picking up the Tarantulas for photo shoots.

We got to our group of smaller Poecilotheria's and at this size - most are between 2 and 3", I really enjoy them. I do handle all of them and up until this wknd, had never seen any kind of aggressive or defensivness behavior from any of them. Most of the time, they are trying to run and hide.

I had one of my favourites out and was in the process of trying to get a hold of it to flip it upside down for the pics. The P. tigrinawesseli was extremely active, running all over the place. I figured I had finally worn it out as it had finally taken up a comfortable position on my outer forearm.

This is when I placed my index finger on it's carapace and proceeded to apply my thumb and middle finger at it's side to pick it up. I noted feeling some "pinching" under the Tarantula as I was lifting it off my arm, and immediately realized I had been tagged especially with pain setting in instantly, I knew it was not a dry one.

I might add here that in our almost 4 yrs in the hobby, and handling all kinds of Tarantulas, I've never been bitten, and this experience has not left me with any fears of handling our T's in future, however, I will be much more careful with where I pick them up from in future. I do honestly feel that the pokey didn't intend to inflict this bite on me, however, being held against my arm, it was probably trying to drag itself out of my grasp and it's fangs were depressed into my skin. Also, having chased it around for about 3 mins or so trying to wear it out, it most likely had drops of venom at the tips of it's fangs as a natural recourse due to being disturbed this long.

After the bite, I asked my fiance (who has a much greater knowledge of venom ratings on T's and scorpions than I do) how bad the venom is for this species. To which he rather uncomfortably mentioned that they are up there among some of the worst and with this particular pokey, there wasn't much information about venom since they are relatively new in the hobby. Since I do not have any allergies to things like bees (or pretty much to anything) I didn't panic. Below is an account of the experience, along with some pictures of the bite and time stamps for each.

Initial Bite - 4:00 pm Saturday, October 13th (figures lol). I was bitten almost exactly in the middle of my outer forearm. Within 10 minutes of the bite, I experienced pain like a bee/wasp that travelled from the bite to my wrist and to my elbow along the outer side of my forearm. I was surprised that such a little Tarantula could invenomate me enough to cause pain to spread over 12" within such a short time period.

I applied ice immediately which helped with the pain and swelling. The swelling caused from the bite did resemble the sting of a bee - a small lump about the size of a pea. The pain was a "shooting/stabbing" type of pain that was constant but had it's moments of strength/intensity for approximately 2 hours. Ice was kept on the area intermittantly for about 1 our.

About 40 minutes after the bite, I did start to notice the shooting pains subsiding and having pain only in the immediate area of the bite. The skin around the bite of about a 3" diameter of my arm felt slightly scalded and tingled like freezing coming out from a dental proceedure. The tingling sensations were somewhat painful.

By 5 pm, I noticed that the swelling had almost completely disappeared and the pain was centred around the invenomation site only. There was still tingling of the surrounding area, but it was becoming less painful.

By 8:30 pm, all of the swelling and most of the redness at the bite area were gone and it only hurt if I ran my finger across the bite.

By morning on Sunday, October 14th, there was no evidence of a bite, swelling, or pain.

I can say that I probably fared the bite as well as I did due to my lack of allergies, the small size of the Tarantula and most likely the tiny amount of venom injected.

Now for the pics...

The 2.75" P. tigrinawesseli pictured on the palm of my hand


4:10 pm - Bite pics with ruler in Centimetres




4:20 pm


4:40 pm




5:00 pm


8:30 pm




 
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