Subject: Re: Brown Recluse Spider

From: Dave Pehling <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 12:01:23 -0800

Research by Darwin K. Vest, Washington State University, has shown that
_Tegenaria agrestis_ (a.k.a. Hobo Spider) bites can cause necrotic lesions
identical to those of _Loxosceles reclusa_, the Brown Recluse.   There are
many reports of "Brown Recluse Spider bites" every year in Washington State
- despite the fact that the only specimen ever collected in that state was
from a trailer from Kansas  in 1978.

_T. agrestis_ is a European member of the Funnel web spider family first
reported in the northwest U.S. in 1936.  By the mid-sixties the spider had
become established in several larger cities of Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
It is now a prevalent species in basements and in window wells of houses in
many parts of Washington.

Cheers,
Dave Pehling

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
W.S.U. Cooperative Extension/Snohomish County
600 - 128th St. SE
Everett, WA.  98208  U.S.A.
phone -  (206) 338-2400
FAX   -   (206) 338-3994
email  -  [email-masked]
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From: [email-masked] (Doug S. Caprette)
Date: 20 Mar 1995 14:11:00 GMT

>What exactly is the difference between poison and venom?

Just a layman's veiw here:

I thing poison is something that hurts you when you injest it or breath it, 
venom is something that hurts you when an animal or plant injects it into you.

Don't eat any spiders now...

--
[email-masked]  
 |  Regards,         |   Hughes STX                |    Code 926.9 GSFC        |
 |  Doug Caprette    |   Lanham, Maryland          |    Greenbelt, MD  20771   |
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The stupid question is the one you don't ask." -- Steve Way

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From: Chuck Fox 777-8241 <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 12:52:35 EST

What is the difference between poison and venom?  Poison is ingested,
venom is injected.  Thus, most venomous animals use their venom for
food gathering, while "poisonous" animals (or other orgenisms) often
have "poisons" for defensive purposes (although the "poison" may
simply represent "accidnetal" properties of some pathway selected
in some non-defensive context).

Also note that posionous is a forager specific term;  an organism that is
poisonous to one forager is not necessarily poisonous to another.

Charles Fox
Dept. Biological Sciences
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 23:04:04 GMT

In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.950328103457.14521A-100000@dante>
"David B. Richman" <[email-masked]> writes:
  <snip>
>mildly toxic venom.  There may be others, but I would not panic.  Even
>black widows, which we have by the billions in the Southwest, cause only
>a handfull of bites over a year.  You are much more likely to be struck
>by lightning, or even more likely to be in an auto accident, than to be
>bitten by any spider!
 
Yes, not too many bites occur.  I do note that Tegenaria agrestis is much
more likely to encounter humans than some of these other spiders though.  They
are very abundant in their range, and we get some people with 1-2 dozen
males entering their homes in the fall looking for females.  While giving
talks in the PNW on the spider, usually 1-2 people come up and say "hey, that's
what bit me last year."  Usually it's the horror cases that cause general panic
among the public. You should see the photos on my desk of some poor lady's
leg...a 1/4 inch deep hole ca 1.5 x 2 inches in diameter.   This is from
Washington, suspected T. agrestis, remote posibility of recluse as her mom
came back from Florida the previous day.
 
Liz Myhre
Dept. Entomology
Washington St. Univ.
Pullman, WA.   99164-6382
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 1995 13:31:33 GMT

Will those people responding to this thread please check the cross-posts
and *cease* cross-posting this to sci.bio.entomology.lepidoptera, a
newsgroup devoted to the study of *Lepidoptera* (butterflies and Moths)
and *not* to Spiders.

Regards,

Christopher Majka

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Christopher Majka
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Internet: <[email-masked]> & <[email-masked]>
Home Page: URL = http://www.cfn.cs.dal.ca/~aa051