Talk:Spider bite

Please put new materials at the bottom of the page, not up here.

Deletion

The notice of potential deletion was attached to this page before I had even finished assembling its parts. The assertion that the attribution of danger to certain spider species is subjective is not valid. It is precisely the purpose of this article to collect scientific evaluations and medical statistics on the likelihood of trauma or death upon being bitten by the spiders that have the more medically significant venom.

Since the notice was attached, I have attached 6 links to articles that offer objective evaluations. P0M 21:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The values for Atrax venom amounts are greatly different, 140 mg. and 2 mg. The 140 mg. figure also indicates a spider capable of killing 5 large men. I suspect that it is off by a factor of 10. P0M 01:23, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Redirect

I've just been looking for "poisonous spiders" on Wiki, and it took me some time to find this article. Shouldn't there be a redirect from "poisonous spiders"? Yes, I know that most/all spiders are poisonous to, say, insects, but a little bit of common sense would not go astray here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.43.16.78 (talk • contribs) .

Done; try out Poisonous spiders. --EngineerScotty 22:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think "poisonous spiders" is a good redirect; I wouldn't move this article under that name; as it's technically incorrect (things which are poisonous are dangerous if you eat them or breathe them in; things which are venomous are dangerous if they bite or sting you). The original article title is the most accurate (all spiders are venemous except for a very few; just few are harmful to man), but it is clunky. My personal preference is to add information about spider fangs and the mechanics and ecology of biting, and rename this as "spider bites". But that's a bit of work. --EngineerScotty 05:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that is a good suggestion, and I am glad that this question will get some discussion before further changes are made. P0M 15:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Now requesting the move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move, although I recommend using the text on Wikipedia:Requested moves for creating a place for discussion on the talk page in the future. -- Kjkolb 09:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I am now requesting the move of this article to Spider bite; when this is done, I'll redirect Spider bites to spider bite. This move will require an admin to perform, as spider bite is an existing redirect. --EngineerScotty 23:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• As an interim step, I'm changing Spider bite to redirect here; so other links outside can be fixed. --EngineerScotty 23:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I fully concur with the need for the move. We've been much too patient with the alteration of the original title. "Spider bites" makes more sense to me, but I guess the "no plurals" rule will have to be obeyed. Otherwise I'd be tempted to try moving it to that title. P0M 06:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Eating spiders

Unable to find citation BUT, I have read and seen pictures and seen various documentaries on TV about people eating spiders. Yuck. In Southeast Asia some folks do eat large spiders. Yuck. But, if I was starving, that spider would likely look yummy. If someone can search better than I it should be possible to provide a reference to humans eating spiders. Yuck.

I would not want anyone to eat spiders. However, not only do some people eat spiders, they are said to be delicious.(Others say the people are delicious, but that's another food prejudice/preference question.) One of the leading academics of the seventeenth century, Anna Maria Von Schurman, was known for avidly eating spiders. John Compton says of her, on p. 180 of Life of the Spiders, "She said they tasted of nuts and justified her passion for them by saying she was born under the sign of Scorpio." Other people say that they taste like crustaceans. There are all kinds of food prejudices and all kinds of things that have allusive tastes that people eat for reasons that perhaps remain entirely unconscious to them. (Tootsie Rolls being one of them.) It also seems that there are genetic reasons for at least some food preferences. People can also learn to like tastes because of pleasant associated experiences. I disliked the taste of beer until I spent a day or two on a hot Pacific island and found how taste quenching a certain brand of draft beer could be. P0M 06:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Bitten

Since I am here, I, the mighty Obbop, will briefly mention the three days of severe agony, pain, almost wishing I was dead while suffering horribly from a California Black Widow spider bite. Horrible!!!! And I am not a wimp. Hale and hearty in my prime while suffering terribly I understand how an infant or older person could die from that bite. Interestingly, I awoke the morning of the fourth day feeling better than I had in years. My senses were extremely acute; smell, taste, touch, hearing, even vision.... hard to describe but I hadn't felt that "vital" in years. By the end of the day I was back to normal. Some sort of "rebound" reaction? I have been sick before, injured semi-severely, but I never experienced that strange sense-heightened feeling from anything other than that spider bite. Heckuva' price to pay to experience it, though. Obbop told yah' this.

That's an interesting experience. One thing that happens to most if not all people is that our awareness of sensations is normally dulled by the way we generally spread our awareness -- both over peripheral stimuli that we devote a certain amount of attention to monitoring just for security reasons, and also over socially relevant (what that SOB said to me last night, for instance) matters that are not even present. A sudden diminution of drive states can redirect attention from events future and remote and open the doors of immediate perception a bit wider. A profound physical shock to the body, an experience that may not be consciously recognized as a near death experience, can have a similar effect -- anything that is not in the immediate environment falls out of awareness, presumably as not relevant to immediate survival. The housekeeping functions of the body tell the intellect to shut up for a while and attend closely to everything that is going on in the moment. As long as nothing noxious is present, being extra aware of the odor of roses, etc., can be very pleasant.

Come to think of it, there is a scene in The Last Samurai where one of the leading characters is dying of a self-inflicted sword wound. He looks out and sees snow flakes. He declares that every one of them is perfect. Ordinarily we attempt to see through the snow to the edge of the road, the tail lights of the car ahead, etc. P0M 06:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at research on Acetylcholine (starting with the segment on it in this wiki page). It's possible you experienced "the opposite of Alzheimer's Syndrome" for one day.

Now that this is moved...

the next stop is a GA nomination. Before we go before the GA folks, things which might be done to improve the article:

• A few more references; I've added {{fact}} tags to a few claims which need sourcing. Also, the section on spider mouthparts could use some sources; could you add those, Patrick?

I'll see what I have on hand. Kaston's treatment, as I recall, is mainly diagnostic in intent, i.e., he says "Look for this characteristic shape," but he doesn't say why that shape is functionally important to the spider. It's like describing the exterior appearance of spinnerets without talking about their interior structure, why the spider can't just do with one or two of them, etc.

• I propose removing the "key to bite severity". Number one, it's bordering on original research, as it's a key written by Wikipedia editors and not by arachnology or medical authorities. Number 2, it's redundant with the big table.

We didn't have it originally, but I thought it made a big improvement from the standpoint of the person who wonders whether to forbid the kids entry into the back yard because of the Argiope that has taken up residence there. If the spider didn't even make fourth string then Dad and Mom can forget about her. They are unlikely to navigate a chart and conclude that the weaver lass is effectively defenseless before humans.P0M

What I did do instead is note which spiders are confirmed (meaning the spider was positively identified, is believed to be the cause of death, there were no external complicating factors, and there is adequate documentation) to have killed people; this isn't OR. Only four general have confirmed kills--Loxosceles, Latrodectus, Phoneutria, and Atrax). Fortunately, I've none of those around my house (a shitload of hobo spiders, though, which I happily squash whenever I see them. The little bastards are fast). --EngineerScotty 05:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

• A bit of spellchecking and other cleanup would be nice.

I've downloaded the software that lets me check from within the edit box. No problem.P0M

• The article is a bit long; presently it's 51k. The information on specific species might be trimmed (all spiders mentioned have their own article other than the redback jumping spider; an article should be written for that). Also, an article on spider venom might be useful; there are lots of things which might go there. Some editing by a person knowledgeable in biochemistry or other related disciplines (i.e not me) might be helpful as well.

Definitely need a spider venom article. It never occurred to me that so many pharmocologists and people who study the nervous system would be interested in all these "prefabricated" neurochemicals. There is lots of neat stuff lying there ready to be discovered and used. P0M

Thoughts? --EngineerScotty 20:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm running out of time on some non-Wiki responsibilities, so I don't have lots of time to devote. One thing we probably all should be doing is collecting information and links to information on the various estimates of toxicity. It's pretty messy, primarily, I suppose, because each lab has its own way of calculating toxicity and the "paper" results can be off by an order of magnitude sometimes. We aren't wrong if we record that one lab has one figure and a second lab has another figure. BTW I wrote to the lab that overestimated the amount of venom of the Phoneutria spiders by an order of magnitude. I keep picturing a spider with a backpack loaded with venom, sort of the way a wolf spider carries her eggs around, but my dream endures along with the strange lab reports. If we could find information on the weights of spiders we could then point out that, e.g., their lab indicates that 10% of the spider's weight is carried in the form of highly toxic venom. I tried to back-envelope a figure by the number of bees in a three pound shipment, but it's been too many years to be sure whether its 50,000 per pound or 50,000 per three pound box. So that didn't work very well. P0M 01:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, take care of what you need to take care of in the real world; Wiki can wait. I'll dig up a few more sources, so I can remove the remaining {{fact}} tags. --EngineerScotty 05:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Redback article

I couldn't help myself. I wrote a couple paragraphs on this much maligned spider. I have to agree with the guy who chewed us out a while back for even putting P. johnsoni in our article. I kept of of these spiders for a year, thinking that with all the hair burning going on in some web sites I would at least get to see some signs of aggressivity greater than that of other jumpers, but although the P. octopunctatus once bared her fangs at my coffee straw I never even saw a single threat display from the P. johnsoni -- even when she laid eggs and was tending them. (They weren't fertile, unfortunately.)

I've tried to word things so that I will not be guilty of "independent research." If need be I can probably go back and find letters from Dr. Vetter at UCR and some of the other Salticidae experts I've bugged. They all said, basically, that these spiders behave about like all the other Phidippus species, and (reading between the lines) if you get bitten its probably your own fault.

Take a look to see whether anything can be better NPOV'd. P0M 02:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Venomous animals tag

A spider bite is not a venomous animal, rather the unfortunate result of an encounter with one. Therefore, I suggest that the "Venomous animals" category tag be removed from this article. --Jwinius 15:29, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

To me this proposal seems analogous to my attempts to calculate results in physics lab where measurements were made with a wooden meter stick to more than three decimal points. P0M 07:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, then the category should have been called something else, or its description should be altered. --Jwinius 10:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The article has had several titles including "dangerous spider." It is often not easy to please everybody. Following the rules on article titles sometimes makes for strange results, too.

The purpose of category tags is to give people one more way that they may can find what they are looking for. Sometimes people want to know what kinds of animals use venom. The tag would help them find the "spider" article (indirectly) while giving them information on the venoms, their methods of delivery, etc. Sometimes people want to know something about what would happen to them if they were bitten by a venomous animal, and the tag would get them directly to spiders and their venom.

What would you like to nominate as an appropriate category? "Animal envenomation"? "Envenomation by animal"? Do the other articles that are put under this category concern only the animal and its venom? Or do they, too, have something to say about the results of human envenoation? P0M 06:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

pictures..

this article is about spider bite and i didn't see a single picture showing what a spider bite could look like.. :( 75.15.183.89 16:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed--Where are the pictures?!!65.183.135.231 (talk) 18:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism Corrected

We were told that "some spider species have bites which are known to be made of pure lava. . . ." Yeah, right. Kostaki mou 04:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, at least the perp exhibited some imagination. :-) P0M 04:43, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The lead-in

The lead-in to this article is currently "Spiders occasionally bite humans. The symptoms of their bites can include necrotic wounds, systemic toxicity, and in some cases, death." I think we should mention that the vast, vast majority of spider bites cause no symptoms or, at most, a small bump on the skin: this lead-in gives the impression that the majority of the 37,000 species of spiders are dangerously venomous. --Hyperbole 10:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

There are some points I don't like in and about this article, but, yes, especially the lead-in totally annoys. Take this one:

About half the spiders encountered in everyday life possess chelicerae strong enough to penetrate human skin.

Excuse me?! Who exactly claims this? And, if I might ask, where do you live? I suppose not on Greenland, right? And certainly not in Scotland, either. And what makes you think that everyone leads their 'everyday life' just there too? To be more precise, I have my doubts that this claim would be (even remotely) correct for any country, even considering Australia. It is simply untrue! The great majority of spiders are by far too small as to possess anything like 'chelicerae strong enough to penetrate human skin'. Nonsense. If not: In what country would that be the case? And, can you prove it? I don't think so. With utter certainty, it cannot be any country in western, northern, or central Europe -- at the very least. Me myself hailing from Germany, we have, all in all, perhaps, 5 or 6 species of spiders, whose bite might (i.e. theoretically, but some.. also practically) be able to penetrate human skin, and that's it. Now consider how many different species of spiders we count, even in a country like Germany alone. You're about right, those would be "slightly" more.. than 10 or 12. It cannot be all that different in most other countries too. Sadly, this is only the beginning of your usual, indispensable sensationalism and rash exagerration cascades still to follow in the article.

Before an antivenom was developed, deaths from Atrax and Hadronyche were very common.

(...)

Deaths reported: 1927–1980 13 deaths.

Is this really necessary? Zero Thrust (talk) 18:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

No, but you could constructively suggest an alternative rather than simply saying you don't like it. I've taken the liberty of changing it, let's see if you still hate how it reads. Dyanega (talk) 00:07, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I really didn't want to be perceived as rude or unconstructive, nor do I hate this article. In fact, I wasn't even sure whether anyone would read this soon, so I just risked an attempt by starting off with the criticisms only. It's good to see it wasn't in vain, and what you changed looks just perfect to me. We're nearer to the facts. Thanks a lot! Zero Thrust (talk) 23:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Kudos

On this very interesting article! A great example of WP. Where did the GA work go? Anchoress (talk) 10:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Some material on the non-incredibly-dangerous bites?

It'd be nice, if someone has time and interest and knowledge, to add some material on the nature and treatment for the small and unimpressive, but painful and annoying and much more common, little painful bumps from your ordinary house-spider. Although the ones that make your skin fall off and you die are, admittedly, more interesting in some sense.  :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.87.78.49 (talk) 02:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be to be a fair amount of nonsense written about the bites that are not medically significant. If the stuff is not "nonsense," it is at least pretty highly subjective. If a record is kept of people who seek medical aid after being bitten by a widow spider, and of how many people out of that group die, then people get the objective idea that those bites are not trivial, and widow spiders are not to be messed with. But when some spider, e.g., Phidippus johnsoni (the red-backed jumping spider), gets a bad rap in the press because somebody gets bitten by something and the last thing s/he saw was one of these large and actually quite attractive spiders, it is very difficult to get any objective information. (I kept two of these spiders for months and never even elicited a threat display from either one, picked one up between thumb and forefinger yet did not get bitten, etc. So it seems very hard to understand how very many people are contacting these creatures in the wild and getting bitten by them.) Supposing that somebody gets bitten and kills or captures the spider so that there is almost no doubt about which kind of spider did the biting, about all that can ordinarily be said is that the "victim" hurt where s/he was bitten. Was the pain about as bad as a bee sting? Well, on some sort of a rough scale I suppose that is true. I have been bitten a couple of times by a Phiddipus audax. (I was asking to get bitten, so don't blame the spider.) I know it hurt. I let go of the spider, which is all she wanted. But was the pain worse than a bee sting? If it wasn't, was that because of there being a weaker toxin? Or was it because the spider did not want to use any more venom than necessary to get me to release pressure and as soon as I started to open my hand she stopped squeezing venom out of her venom system?

If we had a scale of pain that we could reliably apply, then we would need to collect and measure many spider bites of the various species.

Also, where would we stop. It is also (falsely) maintained that some spiders are "too small to break the skin," etc. Having been bitten by a couple of these spiders, my observation is that I was messing with a spider, felt something (in one case a full-body rush), and then within minutes the sensation was gone. Probably there are smaller spiders that bite people, but the pain is so minor that the human barely notices it.

Maybe it is enough for people to know that if it is anything more minor than a Yellow Sac spider bite there isn't any need for concern about it. P0M (talk) 20:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "NEJM2005-Vetter" :
  • {{cite journal | author = Swanson D, Vetter R | title = Bites of brown recluse spiders and suspected necrotic arachnidism. | journal = N Engl J Med | volume = 352 | issue = 7 | pages = 700–7 | year = 2005 | pmid = 15716564 | doi = 10.1056/NEJMra041184}}
  • {{cite journal | author = Swanson D, Vetter R | title = Bites of brown recluse spiders and suspected necrotic arachnidism. | journal = N Engl J Med | volume = 352 | issue = 7 | pages = 700-7 | year = 2005 | id = PMID 15716564 | doi = 10.1056/NEJMra041184 | doi = 10.1056/NEJMra041184}}

DumZiBoT (talk) 22:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Phoneuria antivenom

                                                                           Milan, March 6 2009

Dear Sirs, in your very interesting article on spider bites you say that Phoneutria'antivenom has been developed in 1996. I remember very well, however, to have read in the "Memorias do Istituto de Butantan" that already in the 1930's Lucien Vellard (a French scholar who worked in Brazil) and Vital Brazil had developed two antivenoms, one against the bite of Lycosa raptoria (a wolf spider with a strong necrotic venom) and the other against the bite of Phoneutria nigriventer (then called Ctenus nigriventer. Faithfully yours

               Giorgio O. Malagodi  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.36.157.37 (talk) 13:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC) 

Lycosa hsa been exonerated. The suspicion of necrosis proved false on specific testing and case reports. Such is the way science advances. But Vellard made antivenom in the 30's for latrodectus definately and he studied Phoneutria venom, still having trouble finding the point you make, but my Portuguese is bad and it's only google.Moderntarantula (talk) 07:58, 21 February 2015 (UTC)Moderntarantula

Too many Pictures?

There seems to be too many pictures on the page; it unbalances the text. GaVak 14:46, 20 March 2009

And not even one picture of a bite?
174.6.229.188 (talk) 08:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Removing Huntsman and Redback jumping spiders

I'm removing the sections on Huntsman and Redback jumping spiders from the "Types of spiders with medically significant venom" sections. I've never seen any evidence the vemon of these spiders is "medically significant", especially regarding the jumping spider. Kaldari (talk) 01:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Naming of Atrax venom

I just noticed that someone had re-named the venom component lethal to humans of the Australian funnel-web group. There is a fair amount of re-naming going on. What is the best choice of names? Do we need to list or cross-reference all of them? There is a good report on naming issues at this URL: http://www.atypus.estranky.cz/clanky/atrax-robustus---mygalomorphae-of-australia/jedovatost.html

P0M (talk) 16:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Reorganized

Have reorganized per WP:MEDMOS. Need to make refs compliant with WP:MEDRS Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:39, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

A good editor, please

Wikipedia needs real editors, not English-language apprentices. See for example: "So most of these figures can only give a rough approximation of the medical consequences of various spider bites to humans. A case in point are the Sicarius spp. The venom of these spiders is extremely active in laboratory animals, but there are few if any documented reports of Sicarius bites in humans." Can you spot the problem? The consequence of the venom in people is unrelated to the frequency of bites on people. If you're describing the aggressive nature of the spider, or the relative risk to people, then the frequency of bites matters. On the other hand, when the crux of the article is the toxicity of the venom, then that bit of information is extraneous. The other issue is the last sentence: are there or are there not any reports of bites on people? Why bother reading this instead of the peer-reviewed journals? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.23.68.40 (talk) 14:14, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Sources don't meet Wiki's criteria

Page editor: Please remove and/or request new citations for the information alleged in the first paragraph of the main article. Specifically, source number one is from a commercial site which sells first aid kits. Statements that 98-99% of all bites are harmless should have some citation that refers to a more authoritative source, and not a first aid kit vendor. See: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources_and_notability. 146.23.68.40 (talk) 15:20, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

please note the photo of the man with closed eyes is wrong, there are many losxoceles in brazil, but not RECLUSA, brown recluse is a north american spider.. the patient in question may have losxocelism, noe species should be identified 24.211.43.76 (talk) 16:03, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Fixed.P0M (talk) 03:51, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

What spiders are aware of.

The following, from the opening lines of the intro appears unprovable, and doesn't provide any citation to back it up. "Since spiders are aware of the effect caused by their bites, they also widely bite on self-defense any intruder risking to damage individuals or their webs (i.e. bites are their naturally occurring defense mechanism)."

1. How does the author know that spiders are aware of the effects caused by their bites? Perhaps the spiders bite by pure instinct, and believe the "effect" is a magical, unrelated result, brought about by a deity in response to their clean living. Seriously. It is equally as provable, i.e., not at all.

2. How does the author know that spiders bite for self-defence because they are aware of the effects of the bites (even if they were so aware)? Does a dog bark in self-defence due to it's being aware of the potential effect of that bark, or does it bark out of pure instinct?

In sum, it's probably unprovable that spiders "think" at all. The author appears to ultimately agree when he writes the part in perentheses.

Apart from that, the sentence doesn't make sense from "risking" onwards.

Spiders process information and can plan ahead, but they don't use language so any thinking they do is different from ours. Other than that quibble, I agree with your criticism. I have revised the lead paragraphs accordingly.P0M (talk) 16:27, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Need to change info in the grid

We currently have an entry for Haplopelma schmidti that indicates that one child was killed by this species. I just checked, and the only citation we had for that claim is now gone. Furthermore, several other sites mention a "rumor" about such a death. There seems to be no positive claim being made anywhere at present -- except for the Wikipedia article, that is. P0M (talk) 03:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Weird behavior on system

An edit by Logan that claimed to restore content actually removed a block of text. I went back to the version by Monty (which had previously been used as the basis for revision to a similar removal of that block of text), edited and saved. The system did not reveal my revision. Tried again. Same result. Made a test edit, previewed, and saved. That revision worked. Went back to the Monty version, "edited," previewed, and saved. That time everything worked as expected. P0M (talk) 15:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

2011 Lancet review

[1] --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't pay to read the whole article, but the abstract seems right in line with our Wikipedia article. The one thing is a mention of Loxoceles bites sometime causing "intravascular haemolysis and renal failure". As I recall that is something that I once read about and then could never find a citation for when I went back to document it. If memory serves, the initial reaction to the toxin creates a cascade of chemical changes in human tissues or blood and the results are themselves toxic.P0M (talk) 15:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I am sure someone could help with access. Drop me a note.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:08, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Changes in references to the Australasian Funnel Web spider

It appears that one or more people have been changing the name of the article on Australasian funnel web spiders. I don't have time to track this down now, but it used to be that Australian f w s redirected to Australasian f w s, no?

Currently the article has been changed several times by people with differing opinions on how these spiders should be named. Rather than getting into an edit war about it, let's discuss what has been going on.P0M (talk) 17:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea. Whether "Australian funnel web spider" refers to specific species or genera or whether it just refers to any hexathelid in Australia isn't even clear in its own article. The entire article of Australian funnel web spider reads like one of those world record thingies that sensationalizes something just for the sake of having something to claim as the "most venomous".-- Obsidi♠n Soul 19:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

One argument for using scientific designations is that there is much less confusion about what is what. "Banana spider" can mean anything from the big yellow garden spiders that make beautiful webs to the Brazilian spider that is sometimes found on clusters of bananas and is something that one shouldn't mess with. The "funnel web spider" article was originally called "Sydney funnel web spider." But it got changed, presumably because (1) not everybody calls them that, and (2) the range of those spiders is greater than Sydney.

So the argument for "Australasian" was presumably that the same species is found in areas beyond Australia. I don't care much for "Australasian," but I think it is more important to stick with one name or the other. I hope the people who first changed to "Australasian" several months ago will join the discussion.P0M (talk) 19:53, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

(belatedly) there were thought to be members of the genus Hadronyche from outside Australia but that now does not appear to be the case, so "Australian" is better than "Australasian" - not sure how official this name is for the subfamily Atracinae....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Are there any funnel web spiders anywhere else? Since it's not an official species name, couldn't it just be called Funnel web spiders? --99of9 (talk) 01:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

There are numerous species of "funnel web" spiders that are entirely different from the Australian kind. Rather than getting northern hemisphere people all upset about "deadly funnel web spiders" (they are freaked out badly enough by large, hairy, and harmless spiders that make funnel webs anyway), we need to keep the distinction clear. P0M (talk) 06:38, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Very strange claim -- I'm prepared to delete it

The "spreadsheet" currently says of the genus Steotoda: "Study suggests its venom can be effective in treating widow bites because of their similarity." If a person has a black widow bite and you inject the patient with Steotoda venom, that procedure cannot work. It's adding oil to a burning fire. P0M (talk) 21:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Never heard of this - and pointless as there is latrodectus antivenom readily available. agree with deletion unless a Review Article says somesuch. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:52, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Unless the writer got confused - I think latrodectus antivenom has been used for Steatoda bites.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Why is there a separate stub called Arachnidism?

I am inclined to merge the stub's very slight content with this article, and convert it to a redir to this article. I have left a note to that effect on the Arachnidism talk page, but have not commenced enemy action as yet. JonRichfield (talk) 11:23, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, no one howled, so I did it! JonRichfield (talk) 20:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

spelling

I just made one run through this article and corrected numerous spelling mistakes. Some contributors have failed to check their own spelling. Please have a look at your screen for red spell-check indications and fix the "sierous" spelling errors you may find.

Does anyone know how to get a bot to run through this article to check for errors? There are so many things flagged that are actually Latin names, etc., that I probably missed a few.P0M (talk) 06:34, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Change to medical syndromes and spiders linked.

I would rather the page not focus on death. The tone and logic is too casual. So I propose a reworking of the page in it's entirety. To list syndromes (tarantism, latrodectism, necrotic arachnidism, systemic loxoscelism and other arachnidism--atrax). The table woudl be a list of symptoms not the silly size LD-50 of mice and reported deaths. This is my intro " Spider bites have been implicated in many ailments through history. Notably wild dancing in the Middle Ages, death between the Great Wars, and skin ulcers in the 21st Century. Although the fear of spiders may be a European trait Scientific advancement in Industrial Revolution and later put doubt into medical consequences of spider bites. Commonly held beleifs about spider bites were debunked as folktale and myth. California physician Emile Bogen cemented the consequences of black widow envenomation, or arachnidism, in the 20's Several other types of arachnidism have been described since, however, folktale and myth still dominate the perception of spider bites. Importantly, most arthropod bites are not from spiders, no spider bite is typically fatal to humans and most skin wounds are not from a spider bite.Moderntarantula (talk) 00:33, 20 January 2015 (UTC)ModernTarantula

Article should follow WP:MEDMOS more. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

References

"more controversially"

Per this edit [2] the CDC states clearly that hobo spiders are a concern. Thus "more controversially" is not needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

RESPONSE It is only the CDC that states there is a concern with hobo spider bites. Many spider experts have written about the lack of evidence taht lead to the CDC report. The CDC doesn't argue back they have as far as I can see ignored th evidence.Moderntarantula (talk) 07:12, 20 February 2015 (UTC)ModernTarantula.

Can you provide these sources? I have seen another review that says the same [3] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The CDC recently removed the hobo spider from their list of venomous spiders: I have therefore removed the reference to hobo spiders from this article. Hannah Davis Berlin (talk) 11:04, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

References

Nonvenomous spiders

I'm kinda curious about why the information about the three (now two) known families of spiders without venom glands was removed and replaced with "All spiders are venomous, but not all spider bites result in the injection of venom." This was the most readily available source of that information, and I only knew about it because I recalled reading this page about a year or two ago and thought to check the page history to make sure I wasn't going crazy. There aren't enough nonvenomous spiders to make a separate page I wouldn't think, either. Browser searching returns results for the huntsman, spider venom, and a little on Uloboridae. These families and the harvestmen urban legend were things I actually had to explain to some people just last week. 69.47.149.35 (talk) 03:10, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Insect venom is heat seeking

Children & even adults have died do to the old practice of applying cold compresses to reduce swelling from bites of non lethal venomous insects & snakes. The venom is heat seeking was discovered after numerous deaths were caused by the wrong treatment. The ice or cold compresses drove the venom more quickly to the bite victims internal organs & heart. Using hot compress would be better to extract the poison. Trishdd (talk) 22:30, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I've marked the statement as disputed. Do you have any references for that claim? See WP:Verifiability. The CDC still recommends it, see http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/spiders/symptoms.html. Cenarium (talk) 22:41, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I see no support for the claim that venom responds to heat or cold. And why is the subject heading saying Insect in the talk page of an article about Spider Bite?

But the statement in this article is somewhat garbled: "wash with ice"? The referenced paper says "apply ice packs", but in association with only certain classes of bites. The NIOSH/CDC link mentioned above says to apply cold compresses or ice packs.

I only had time to search back through the history a little to see where this garbling may have occurred, but did not find it. Sorry, but I'm not going to try to fix this issue right now.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:27, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Misleading section order

By putting the material in the "Signs and symptoms" section first, before the "Diagnosis" section, a false impression is given that the symptoms described are likely to be from spider bites, whereas several reviews have shown that false diagnosis is common. I changed the order, but it was reverted. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:55, 19 November 2017 (UTC)