i read with great interest the case report titled “periumbilical pain with radiation to both legs following tarantula bite; a case report” published in emergency journal. tarantula spiders are not medically important except for some very limited species, which do not exist in iran. solifugae -or rotails as they are called in iran- are in fact another group of animals also called camel spiders (...

Spider bites are uncommon medical events, since there are limited number of spiders world-wide with fangs strong enough to pierce human skin, and most spiders bite humans only as a final defense when being crushed between skin and another object. Thus, most lesions attributed to spider bites are caused by some other etiology. The spiders that can cause medically significant bites include widow ...

Predators influence prey through consumption, and through trait-mediated effects such as emigration in response to predation risk (risk effects). We studied top-down effects of (sub-) adult wolf spiders (Lycosidae) on arthropods in a meadow. We compared risk effects with the overall top-down effect (including consumption) by gluing the chelicers of wolf spiders to prevent them from killing the ...

Spiders are powerful predators, but the threats confronting them are numerous. A survey is presented of the many different arthropods which waylay spiders in various ways. Some food-specialists among spiders feed exclusively on spiders. Kleptoparasites are found among spiders as well as among Mecoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, and Heteroptera. Predators are found within spiders’ own population (c...

Many spiders possess myrmecomorphy, and species of the jumping spider genus Myrmarachne exhibit nearly perfect ant mimicry. Most salticids are diurnal predators with unusually high visual acuity that prey on various arthropods, including conspecifics. In this study, we tested whether predation pressure from large jumping spiders is one possible driving force of perfect ant mimicry in jumping sp...

Because all spiders are predators and most subdue their prey with poison, it has been suggested that fear of spiders is an evolutionary adaptation. However, it has not been sufficiently examined whether other arthropods similarly elicit fear or disgust. Our aim was to examine if all arthropods are rated similarly, if only potentially dangerous arthropods (spiders, bees/wasps) elicit comparable ...

mistaken for recluse spiders. Brown recluse and related recluse spiders (Loxosceles spp., Family Sicariidae) are, by far, the most commonly misidentified spiders in Colorado. Unfortunately, also greatly overdiagnosed are purported spider bites caused by brown recluse spiders – a situation perpetuated by many in the Colorado medical establishment as well as through self-diagnosis. Colorado hosts...

following the hospitalization of 195 individuals due to the spider bite in 1995 and three cases of recorded death in the year of 1993 which were referred to emam reza hospital in mashad, the present study was undertaken on bionomics and medical importance of lathrodectus spp in khorasan province, during 1995-2005. a total cases of 195 bites were studied composing of 70.8 % males and 29.2% femal...

The Mexican colonial web-building spider Metepeira incrassata is frequently attacked by predatory wasps from a number of families. Previous studies have shown that wasps often attack more than one spider during a ‘run’ on a colony, but capture success declines as colony size increases, and that spiders in the central core of the colony have lower risk (Rayor & Uetz 1990, Behavioral Ecology and ...

Almost all spiders building vertical orb webs face downwards when sitting on the hubs of their webs, and their webs exhibit an up-down size asymmetry, with the lower part of the capture area being larger than the upper. However, spiders of the genus Cyclosa, which all build vertical orb webs, exhibit inter- and intraspecific variation in orientation. In particular, Cyclosa ginnaga and C. argent...