Talk:Hobo spider

message: This is not a complaint but when I reread it I kinda get the feeling someone might take it that way.  Apologies in advance.
'Where the leg joints meet' (Which?), sternum, cephalothorax, . . .
When describing how to distinguish between species a diagram is often invaluable.
Good options include:
1. Decent outline plus the distinguishing feature next to a copy of the outline before the feature was added.
2. A well contrasted/lit picture with the feature fully visible next to a _separate_ photo where the relevant feature has been clearly marked.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:1200:7860:C0F3:6803:BFBC:1222 (talk) 06:29, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Diagrams for the layman please

message: What is this??? A children's book or a "HOW TO BUY A HOBO SPIDER GUIDE"??? Wtf is this?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by RandyPng (talk • contribs) 02:49, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Description of Anatomy of the Hobo Spider

message: The article says they are native to Europe but the distribution map only shows them inhabiting the Pacific Northwest of the US, and part of Canada.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radishes (talk • contribs) 20:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have an authoritative citation for this? Dyanega 17:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Distribution map contradicts article text

message: I'd like to see a reference to the trial involving rabbits, because it sounds alot like a survey of directly opposite results referenced on the UC Davis page. The necrosis seems to be septic rather than posionous, according to these guys.
This article was clearly written by someone who particularly likes this type of spider.  It ought to be revised by someone who has more experience with these spiders, as it is currently inconsistent with other information on the web about the hobo spider.
--A reader
:Study of the article history will show that quite a few people have contributed to this article. There has been a great deal of misinformation about this spider on the WWW and maybe in other places. The University of California at Riverside article (see link at the bottom of the article) is quite objective and was written by professionals in the field.
:Nobody would enjoy being bitten by these spiders. If I had to choose, I'd much rather be bitten by a 5" Huntsman. Pain is one thing, and necrotic tissue damage is something else. That being said, they are not nearly as damaging to humans as are the brown recluse spiders, and the real champion killer, world wide, is still the genus Latrodectus.  There are worse spiders to be bitten by, especially the venomous funnel-web spiders of Australia, but the widow spiders manage to kill more people simply because there are so many more of them building their nests in places where people will stick their hands or other parts of their anatomies.
:Nobody I've ever read has indicated any particular affection for this kind of spider. The medical sources that collect data on bites and consequences do not pretend that these spiders can't or won't bite, nor do any of them maintain that the bites provoke nothing more than a momentary unpleasantness. On the other hand, one should not let one's subjective reaction to a rather unappealing-looking spider with a medically significant bite blind one to a clear awareness of the relative degree of threat they pose to humans.P0M
The article link recently added, Discover Magazine, is not nearly as good as the articles it cites. The author of the Discover article has only a M.F.A. from the University of Arkansas, and has written some secondary materials on black widows. The article on the hobo spiders starts with the account of a death, but it is not clear what spider or other agent was the cause of the death. Then it gives an account of a serious bite case where the spider was collected and identified.  That's a sort of journalistic "bait and switch" IMHO.  I'm rather surprised at Discover for publishing the article.  The Riverside site and the hobospider.com site both mention deaths, but they don't sensationalize the deaths. I think it is the Riverside site that mentions one death in which the spider bite was a contributory cause. That kind of reporting is much more sober and responsible. Do we really want to direct people to sensationalistic articles? P0M 05:09, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: untitled

message: I'll say it again for clarification for all the people who prefer to trust outdated and/or non-authoritative sources: Wikipedia is not here to promote theories; if there are competing theories, then both sides are presented according to the number and reliability of sources, and the evidence behind both theories is presented objectively. To treat two hypotheses as equal when one theory has no evidence to support it is considered undue weight, and POV-pushing to favor the weaker hypothesis. There is no objective evidence, nor are there authoritative sources, to support the claim that hobo spider bites are medically significant - it's on a par with the old tale that putting pencil leads in your mouth would give you lead poisoning. There are literally dozens of controlled, peer-reviewed studies on the composition and medically significant effects of the venom of widow spiders, dozens more on the venom of brown recluses, and ZERO on the venom of hobo spiders. These spiders have co-habited with human beings in Europe for centuries, and yet there have been no confirmed medically significant bites there. As in the U.S., the only reports of necrotic wounds in Europe that have been associated with hobo bites are those where no one ever actually saw a spider, and (also as in the U.S.) ALL these reports post-date Darwin Vest's original - and still unconfirmed - suggestion that hobo bites were a source of necrotic wounds. If the absence of supporting evidence is not enough to make one stop and reconsider the urban legends, consider this: to date, not a single authority on spiders or spider bites has come forward to support the claim. The only ones that have come forward have done so to state exactly the OPPOSITE. Surely, after more than a decade since Vest's report, there would be ONE legitimate authority who would have come along and said "Yes, the bites of this spider are medically significant". You can try a simple experiment: if your doctor tells you that hobo bites are dangerous, just ask him whose research, published in what medical journal, he learned this from. You'll find that doctors are just as vulnerable to urban legends as the next person. The bottom line is simple: the authorities are saying that there is no reason to believe that hobo bites are dangerous. The WP article reflects what the authorities have to say; that's WP policy. Dyanega 17:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Second. I removed a claim that their bite can cause loss of limbs due to necrosis. It cited PostSecret as its source, which is ridiculous. Chicopac (talk) 02:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Giving undue weight to anecdotes and non-authorities 

message: I'm fairly new here so please bear with me as I learn the ropes.
First of all, the sources that I have found contradict the stated frequency of dry bites.  All credible sources I have seen indicate a 50% rate of dry bites, not "in the majority of cases" as is indicated by the article.  Upon checking the citation for the statement I found no indication of that being reiterated or any such supporting information on the burke museum webpage that was linked to as citation number 3.  Further as can be seen in the works of Gretta Binford and other prominents in the field, it is actually quite difficult to determine the frequency of dry bites for a huge multitude of reasons.  Such factors include measuring venom should it be present, should there be a threshold quantity that qualifies as a "wet" bite if the amount injected isn't clinically significant, access of bite victims to medical and scientific services necessary to detect, identify, and measure the venom, etc...
Another error exists in the citation and subsequent extrapolation from the Darwin Vest rabbit study.  In the article it states that the rabbits were injected with hobo venom, which was not the case.  In the Vest study the spiders were simply held against the skin of the rabbit.  The study did not milk and subsequently inject the venom as purported in the article.  A followup study done by Gretta Binford while at Arizona University and published in part in Toxicon did milk the spiders and injected the venom.  In this study the results of the Vest study were not duplicated.  The Vest study is further cast into doubt knowing that they did not inject the venom, meaning that statistically, if it is true that about 50% of bites are dry, then he should have had fewer cases of necrotic reaction than reported.
Additionally, the 8th citation made, also to burke museum, to support the statement "Hobo spiders are common in Europe, though bites are relatively unknown, and do not cause necrosis" is incorrect.  The linked page never mentions the bite rates of Hobo's in Europe or whether they cause necrosis or not.  On a further note, after reviewing much of the information on the burke museum spider webiste I have found much of their information to be ex termly biased, inaccurate, and in some cases out of date.  I wouldn't use it as a source on my blog, let alone a wikipedia article.
There also seems to be some disagreement on whether the bite of the hobo can cause a necrotic reaction.  First of all, there is no evidence that the components of hobo venom should cause a necrotic reaction as can be seen from the work of Matt Fidorea, Gretta Binford and others.  This doesn't mean that an unknown agent doesn't exist as a secretion on the surface of the spider that could contaminate the injection site.  Also, research is ongoing as to whether or not reactions from spider bites could be made worse by the bacteria that spiders may carry.  Recently it is believed that spiders may carry certain types of bacteria that are harmful to humans, and a bite would be an excellent method of transmission.  Not strictly related to the topic of necrosis is the hemolytic properties of the venom.  The Yellow Sac Spider and Giant House Spider venom has a hemolytic rate of 89% while the Hobo has a rate of 1% to 1.2%.  Again, this doesn't eliminate the possibility of a necrotic reaction, but it illustrates the damaging properties of the Hobo venom as compared to other, clinically insignificant spiders.
It is also believed by some that the necrotic reaction is not directly caused by the venom of the Hobo spider.  Protease within the venom have been shown to elicit an especially strong immune response in humans.  This causes immediate swelling in the area.  In some cases, based on local physiology, as well as the state of the immune system in the person and their predisposition to react, the swelling could constrict the area around the bite.  This could cause a loss of blood flow to the dead tissue, creating an anaerobic environment.  Once this is created infection from anaerobic bacteria could become responsible for a necrotic reaction.
Moving beyond the academics of this discussion I do believe that the "tone" of the article is inappropriate in that it imparts opinion.  Multiple sides on a controversial topic should have the arguments of all sides laid out without a sympathetic tone.  It is this tone that initially caused me to take a break from work and write up this response.  I apologize for not having more sources, I am at work.
The section on toxicity and aggressiveness, beyond having too much of a tone, provides too much unsupported information as fact.  Specifically "Hobo spider bites are not known to be fatal to healthy humans" which isn't cited and in direct conflict with other sources.  While I do doubt these sources, there are purported cases of Hobo bites causing bone marrow failure and renal failure resulting in death.  Personally, I believe it more likely that the bite, if really a bite at all, was miss attributed to the Hobo.  But there are educational research institutions that state this information on their site and without my own studies to duplicate their research who am I to arbitrarily dismiss them just because i find them unlikely.
I also disagree with the bite treatment section.  I feel that it should be emphasized that the proper course of action in any medical situation is to seek medical attention, no matter how trivial.  If a person does indeed capture the spider that they know is responsible then is it unlikely that the doctor can properly identify the spider.  To do so would require examination under a microscope.  Determination of sex and development could also give an indication of the severity of any toxin injected.  I also disagree with the statement "applied on the off chance that the bite introduced a virus or microbe".  I think that the use of "off chance" is both too casual of a tone and also implies uncited information.  It would seem to imply that it is unlikely that the bite introduced foreign matter but does not cite a source.  It should simply instruct to apply a disinfectant.  Also, spraying the wound with something such as bactine *may* be more effective at penetrating the wound than an ointment.
All in all I would recommend that the article rating be changed from a 'B' to a 'C' based on all of this information, lack of citations, and unrelated citations.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krellor (talk • contribs) 22:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Reading over your message, I've made the correction you note regarding Vest using spiders to bite the rabbits, versus Binford's injection protocol. Other suggested changes will, of course, require citations. For the Burke Museum source, for example, all that would be required to refute a statement such as "Hobo spiders are common in Europe, though bites are relatively unknown, and do not cause necrosis" is ONE study from Europe showing that these spiders do bite, and that they cause necrosis. I've yet to come across any such references, so if you know of one, please link it here. Likewise, you claim that the statement "Hobo spider bites are not known to be fatal to healthy humans" is contradicted by other sources, yet you give no such sources. All it would take is ONE credible cite. Please, if you have reliable sources with contradictory information, please link them here, and if they necessitate a change to the article, then they can be included. If the sources are not reliable (you say "While I do doubt these sources"), then perhaps they do not deserve to be given credence, especially if the opinion of experts in the field all unanimously disagree. While you may be correct in the bias of the Burke website, it is written by an expert, and there are no experts which appear to be disagreeing; if there are "two sides" to an issue, they don't have to be given equal weight if their evidence and arguments are not equal - that's an essential aspect of NPOV, to NOT expect "equal weight" when there is a fundamental asymmetry. Having interacted with many spider experts, I find that they tend to be extremely insulted by the constant barrage of disbelief they get from laymen who insist things like "Brown recluses live in California" and "A hobo spider bite gave me a necrotic wound" simply because their doctors made a mistaken diagnosis. The spider experts get defensive, and much of what they write, be it websites or otherwise, reflects that. The unanimous opinion from spider experts is that you cannot diagnose a wound as being caused by a spider simply by its symptoms, and you cannot FURTHER extrapolate by blaming a spider that either doesn't even occur in your area, or does not have sufficient medical evidence supporting claims of its venom's properties. As for the bite treatment section, your comments don't seem unreasonable, but again, having some sort of citation would be preferrable - I'm half-tempted to just delete most or all of that section, as it is. It treads a fine line, since "giving medical advice" in WP is something to be avoided, or at least treated with care and circumspection. Dyanega (talk) 00:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

text: I've made most of the changes you suggest. A point of clarification: when you wrote "The article shouldn't attempt to differentiate effects of the bite based on geographic region when all information shows no difference between the venom based on geography." I think something has gotten confused there. What I had thought the Binford study made clear is that hobo venom is the same in the US and Europe. That is one fact. Second is that no one in Europe has ever reported a necrotic bite from a hobo (this is one of those awkward situations where it is difficult to prove the negative, but the review papers certainly give no such citations, and if the experts can't find any records of necrotic hobo bites in Europe, then it does not seem unfair to state that there are no such reports). However, connecting those two facts together would apparently constitute "original research" (i.e., if the article were to make the logical connection that if hobo bites WERE necrotic, then we would have had reports from Europe - and that we never have is evidence that the belief that the venom is necrotic is false). Unless Binford et al. specifically stated that the reports of necrotic bites from the US must be spurious, then no matter how logical, the article still shouldn't express that conclusion. As for the four links you gave, one is Vest's own website (NOT a reliable source), and the other three all refer to Vest's laboratory study, either directly or by citing a work that cites it. if the original lab study is dubious, then ALL of these links are just as dubious, as they are secondary sources which supply no additional evidence beyond that rabbit-injection study; they simply cite it as if it were a fait accompli. Dyanega (talk) 21:05, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Errors, etc... 

message: This has been mentioned above, but it was three years ago and nothing has changed, so... it seems very unsatisfactory that the map only shows the American distribution of a spider native to Europe! Could someone with the necessary knowledge please fix the map so that the range is shown for both areas? 86.158.191.234 (talk) 18:11, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  European distribution - map? 

message: I don't know if anyone watches Animal Planet but i saw the Hobo Spider on a show there called "Infested" and a family was living in a home that sat in a heavily wooded area and was infested with this Hobo Spider. They tried using a bug bomb in the house and killed everything except the Hobo Spiders which made them increase dramatically in population because they had no competition left. They ARE actually pretty aggressive with or without an eggsack and the bites caused MAJOR infection from all the bacteria that they actually carry around on themselves which could have easily killed someone. The mother was bit and went to the ER with a massive absess on her abdomen where she was bit by a Hobo Spider. They said they were able to drain over a cup of pus from the absess just from when they started treating it. You may be able to see something about it if you go to AnimalPlanet.com and look for the show called "Infested". I wanted to add this in the discussion because the information i read in the article sounded like it contradicted what the expert said on the show. Whether or not these spiders even inject their venom they are still dangerous. The mother and son both ended up with bites while they were sleeping!!! the son was bit on the elbow and the mother was bit on the lower left part of her abdomen. these spiders can carry some pretty disgusting bacteria on them and they are almost impossible to completely exterminate once they infest a home. Tiffany885 (talk) 04:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aggressive and Dangerous Spider 

message: I don't have time right now to change the image, but the current one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hobo-spider.jpg) is NOT a hobo spider (Tegenaria agrestis).  It's a photo of Tegenaria duellica or some other species in the same genus. Please double check your identifications with reputable sources (like BugGuide.net or Spiders.us) before adding them to wiki pages.  It's getting frustrating the amount of spider pages that have images of the wrong species. Lady Arachnophile (talk) 16:56, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a local link to :File:Hobo-spider.jpg. -Mardus (talk) 13:15, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Since that misID'd image is no longer on the page (I ended up changing it myself, I think), that makes good sense to leave a link like that as reference to what I was talking about (thanks for watching my back!). I'm still pretty new here... slowly figuring it out. I don't edit/add things often enough to be learning much, though. --Lady Arachnophile (talk) 12:44, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current image is not a hobo spider 

message: # Swanson DL, Vetter RS. Bites of Brown Recluse Spiders and Suspected Necrotic Arachnidism. New England Journal of Medicine. 2005;352(7):700-707. doi:10.1056/NEJMra041184.
# Fuller PR. Toxic Spiders of the United States: A Case Report and Discussion. Journal of Pharmacy Practice. 2000;13(3):210-213. doi:10.1177/089719000001300309.
# Isbister GK, White J. Clinical consequences of spider bites: recent advances in our understanding. Toxicon. 2004;43(5):477-492. doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2004.02.002.
# Gaver-Wainwright MM, Zack RS, Foradori MJ, Lavine LC. Misdiagnosis of Spider Bites: Bacterial Associates, Mechanical Pathogen Transfer, and Hemolytic Potential of Venom from the Hobo Spider, Tegenaria agrestis (Araneae: Agelenidae). Journal of Medical Entomology. 2011;48(2):382-388. doi:10.1603/ME09224.
# Vetter RS, Isbister GK. Do hobo spider bites cause dermonecrotic injuries? Annals of Emergency Medicine. 2004;44(6):605-607. doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2004.03.016.
# McKeown N, Vetter RS, Hendrickson RG. Verified spider bites in Oregon (USA) with the intent to assess hobo spider venom toxicity. Toxicon. 2014;84:51-55. doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2014.03.009.
# Richardson-Boedler C. Necrotic Spider or Tick Bite? Forensic Examiner. 2007;16:42.
There does not appear to be any current, valid consensus that hobo spiders are dangerous to humans, especially not as the cause of necrotic lesions. The opposite is true; hobo spiders are not the cause of human-wrecking bites. Kothog (talk) 08:13, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey of actual scientific literature regarding Hobo spider toxicity to '''humans''' 

message: Hi! I had a few notes that I wanted to share after reading the article. Key parts of typical spider articles usually have web, diet, and mating sections that would be useful in this article. A webbing section is important to identify, by looking at construction and decoration, the regular behavior of the spider, and is often important in mating and hunting. A diet section is useful to learn about hunting habits and typical prey the hobo spider would hunt or learn more about intra-species and inter-species hunting. The mating habits of spiders are unique to each species, such as the peacock spider where males display their colorful abdomens and do a dance to attract a female. Having a mating section would be great to learn about how males and females interact, how males compete for mates, brood sizes, and more. I hope this is helpful! --Dgoldblum (talk) 03:42, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Behavioral Ecology Student Suggestions