Venom

[YungRasputin]

LD50:

Bee venom: 2.8-3.5 mg/kg

Black widow: 0.9-0.0075 mg/kg

y’all:

 

[VaporRyder]

dad jokes

“pramagatic keepers” who are both, emotionally incapable of discussing the subject, and, also, (apparently) struggle with the idea that you can establish “peak venom” within a particular family, establish what would be the weakest venom, see who falls broadly within those poles and see who would fall towards the middle of those 2 poles

people are even suggesting that you can’t compare or rate animal sizes lmao or wait no, my favorite, the sage like wisdom of “if you don’t want envenomated just don’t get bit!” which is amazing and reminds me of how CBT practitioners say crap like “if you don’t want to be depressed just stop being sad!”

Aight, ‘son’. I’m out!

 

[matypants]

“pramagatic keepers” who are both, emotionally incapable of discussing the subject, and, also, (apparently) struggle with the idea that you can establish “peak venom” within a particular family, establish what would be the weakest venom, see who falls broadly within those poles and see who would fall towards the middle of those 2 poles

people are even suggesting that you can’t compare or rate animal sizes lmao or wait no, my favorite, the sage like wisdom of “if you don’t want envenomated just don’t get bit!” which is amazing and reminds me of how CBT practitioners say crap like “if you don’t want to be depressed just stop being sad!”

Science is only just now beginning to understand how various venoms work. Want to get tarantula venom graded? First find a medical use for all the different species venoms outside of hobbyist interests. Otherwise science will continue to ignore tarantula venom. Your goal is not feasible. And anyway, as has been previously stated: you can’t measure “medium”.
Also, we already know Asian arboreals and fossorials have severe venom. Other old world species have less severe but still very painful bites. And none of them will kill you. Beyond that is just mental gymnastics.

 

[YungRasputin]

Science is only just now beginning to understand how various venoms work. Want to get tarantula venom graded? First find a medical use for all the different species venoms outside of hobbyist interests. Otherwise science will continue to ignore tarantula venom. Your goal is not feasible. And anyway, as has been previously stated: you can’t measure “medium”.
Also, we already know Asian arboreals and fossorials have severe venom. Other old world species have less severe but still very painful bites. And none of them will kill you. Beyond that is just mental gymnastics.

you can objectively establish a “medium” which I have outline several times (roughly) - to suggest otherwise is to imply that “venom is venom” and it’s all the same

it’s objectively/demonstrably true that black widow venom is more toxic than bee venom, it’s objectively true that Deathstalker venom is more toxic than Venezuelan Suntiger venom, and so on - these are all things which can be determined through the scientific method and are not subject to personal opinion or speculative anecdotes on discussion forums

I have already acknowledge the practical limitations of the hypothetical I first presented in my OP - why are people so keen on making me repeat myself? I already said that science would have to “play catch up” and that data would need to be collected overtime and that categorizing venom levels in such a way would take some time

why people are so hostile to the idea of having a deeper, science based understanding of the venom levels of the animals they keep is silly and beyond me

 

[Wolfram1]

well as much as i would like to "help" i am not about to get 100 lab mice just so i can test the venom potency of one spider

then you would have to make sure to get accurate data

the thing i could get behind is somehow milking some of the spider venom (no idea how that would work) to get an analysis done (i'm not paying).

For all the good that would do...

the current system is fine as far as i am concerned, i would love to know more about how the venoms workand which protein complexes have evolved for what purpose.

but handing out grades or ordering species by potency is pretty useless

just dont get bit! and if you do submit a detailed if subjective bite report

 

[YungRasputin]

oh and I’m curious about this - signs and symptoms of:

the flu: pain, muscle cramps, fatigue, dizziness, vomiting, nausea, over/under sleeping, etc - secondary symptoms may linger for some time after primary symptoms have dissipated

P. Irminia bite: pain, muscle cramps, fatigue, dizziness, vomiting, nausea, over/under sleeping, etc

am I missing something? how did I mischaracterize or “downplay” the bite of the Venezuelan Suntiger and OW tarantula species?

(mind you, prior to the influenza vaccine, “the flu” was a global pandemic comparable to C19 and is still something which has killed 12,000-61,000 people since 2010 per the CDC, and has lead to 140,000-810,000 hospitalizations within the same time period)

 

[Arachnophobphile]

YungRasputin,

I understand your original post and I do think a tarantula vemon grade level is a great idea to have at least for science and arachnologist to go from. It would also provide better understanding for us that own T's.

The fact is there simply does not exist a plethora of arachnologist. The arachnologist that do exist don't practice full time as it is a side job to their main occupation due to lack of funds.

There is still alot not known about tarantulas. We are over a thousand species and more keep getting discovered.

The community of responsible people who keep tarantulas is actually quite small.

Arachnoboards exist to promote the hobby in a responsible and positive way and to help new comers in the proper care of their tarantulas.

Some pharmaceutical companies have only just recently started researching tarantula venom for medical uses.

With all that it is well known that OW T venom is more potent or what is termed 'medically significant'. NW T's have urticating setae for added defense while OW's do not. Nature decided to make OW T's venom much stronger for defense as well as speed.

I myself have been bitten by a medically significant venomous true spider, species unknown. I have read tarantula bite reports by OW's and there is similarities although completely different venom types if I understand correctly if not I'll be corrected shortly after I post this.

There is no documented reports that exist of anyone dying directly from tarantula venom OW or NW.

Us as keepers try to be responsible and properly care for our T's. Not provoke them, stress them out or try to be bitten which defies the purpose and shines negatively on the hobby as a whole.

This site might be of some help not sure, where you can ask about tarantula venom levels. I do believe some arachnologist visit the forums once in a while. Again not 100% but trying to help if I can.

This thread is continuing on into areas not needed maybe this site might help I don't know.

https://atshq.org/

 

[matypants]

you can objectively establish a “medium” which I have outline several times (roughly) - to suggest otherwise is to imply that “venom is venom” and it’s all the same

it’s objectively/demonstrably true that black widow venom is more toxic than bee venom, it’s objectively true that Deathstalker venom is more toxic than Venezuelan Suntiger venom, and so on - these are all things which can be determined through the scientific method and are not subject to personal opinion or speculative anecdotes on discussion forums

I have already acknowledge the practical limitations of the hypothetical I first presented in my OP - why are people so keen on making me repeat myself? I already said that science would have to “play catch up” and that data would need to be collected overtime and that categorizing venom levels in such a way would take some time

why people are so hostile to the idea of having a deeper, science based understanding of the venom levels of the animals they keep is silly and beyond me

Scientists aren’t going to lift a finger to map all this data out when the only people who will benefit in any way would be hobbyists. Arachnologists generally take a dim view of hobbyists and the tarantula hobby for many reasons. And a grading system is useless when bad is bad is bad. At the end of the day 10 points this way or that way don’t change the end result.

 

[basin79]

There's nowt wrong with the NW/OW there already is.

Granted if the discussion was snake venom then fine. But it's tarantulas. A new world is going to hurt alot because of the mechanical bite. An OW is going to hurt more with their venom (if it's a wet bite).

Worth having separate would be the Selenocosmia crassipes or similar if you have a dog as a bite really is life and death then.

 

[viper69]

apparently everything is just subjective - so how do you tell apples and oranges apart? they’re both fruit and round so I mean how’re they just not the same? one man’s orange is another man’s apple

When you answer my house question I’ll answer yours.

I’ve never said every word is subjective, nor did I suggest that at any point. Please quote me where you find me writing that- you can’t.

 

[The Grym Reaper]

The tarantula's venom only becomes dangerous if your cardiovascular system is not working properly or an anaphylactic shock creeps in.

Not entirely correct. You also have to take into account that the vast majority of bites are to the extremities (most commonly hands/arms, sometimes to the legs), this generally doesn't pose that much of a risk to the victim unless there is an extreme reaction or underlying condition (as you pointed out). Bites to the torso or around the head/neck would almost certainly have a more severe effect on the victim. IIRC, there's an example in the bite reports for S. calceatum where a young soldier was bitten in the neck while collecting specimens and possibly would have died had he not received immediate medical intervention.

there are tests for potency but they are not 100% accurate because mice are not humans even if you mathematically determine the lethal amount based on body mass

Basically, yeah.

I'm sure they did LD50 tests for a bunch of tarantula species years ago and G. rosea/porteri was at the top (or very close to it) of the list, turns out that their venom is tailored towards being more efficient at killing rodents than other species. As far as we're concerned though, the mechanical damage from a G. rosea bite would be worse than the effects of its venom.

For everyone interested in the potency of OBT venom, have a look at this video. Apparently, P. murinus venom is much worse that H. gigas. The pain is real

It's funnier because dude got a dry bite from the H. gigas and thought that OW venom was nothing so he got one hell of a shock when his P. murinus actually gave him the hurt juice.

the one that’s supposed to be effecting Pokies

The only legislation currently affecting Poecilotheria that I'm aware of has nothing to do with their venom potency and everything to do with the fact that the entire genus is now listed under CITES appendix II.

I think there's like one random place in America that basically banned everything apart from a couple of NW species, any other laws regarding the sale/trade of certain tarantula species (or exotics in general) are basically anti-smuggling laws.

 

[MikeofBorg]

I passed a kidney stone last week, and I'll take the pain of venom over that any day. I was stung by a Tarantula Hawk Wasp in Arizona in 2000. That pain was nothing to the stone. At the time I thought it was the worst I ever felt; until last Friday. Bad thing is it took 4 days for the stone to pass, without the Vicodin and Morphine I don't know if I could have stand it for much longer. The wasp sting pain only lasted 15-20 minutes, and was sore for a few days afterward.

 

[sasker]

usually brick and mortar pet stores like Petco only offer low venom, beginner level species like the Curly Hair

False!

trained professionals aka not me who’s only a behavior specialist slash student mortician

There has hardly been any research done on tarantula venom. Any idea how much it would cost and how much effort it would take to test ALL tarantula species known to man just so you can say with certainty that all OW tarantula have strong venom? This is just a fantasy with no real-life application.

the sage like wisdom of “if you don’t want envenomated just don’t get bit!”

Yet most keepers here on AB have never got bit. So it seems possible to avoid getting bit. I would even go as far as stating that ALL tarantula bites are caused by human error. Read the bite reports. I am yet to read one that was totally unavoidable.

you can objectively establish a “medium” which I have outline several times (roughly) - to suggest otherwise is to imply that “venom is venom” and it’s all the same

No, you cannot and you have not. If you compare lethal venom with non-lethal venom, one could say one is weaker than the other. But with tarantula bites much more plays a role, like where on the body was the bite, how much venom was injected. Perhaps you could try to find volunteers who could then compare the effects from one bite to another. From bite reports we can deduct that OW tarantula venom causes excruciating pain. You seem to be the only one for whom this is not enough information.

It's funnier because dude got a dry bite from the H. gigas

Yikes! He was indeed 'unpleasantly surprised' to find out the effects of an OBT bite.


OP, it was fun to have this little chat, but I don't think this debate is going anywhere. Have fun and just don't get bit