Talk:Spider bite

message: 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)
thread_title: Deletion

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Redirect

message: 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)
thread_title: Eating spiders

message: 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)
thread_title:  Redback article 

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

message: 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)
replies: text: Well, at least the perp exhibited some imagination. :-)  P0M 04:43, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism Corrected

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

message: 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" :
** 
** 
DumZiBoT (talk) 22:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bot report : Found duplicate references ! 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Phoneuria antivenom  

message: 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?<BR>174.6.229.188 (talk) 08:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many Pictures? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Removing Huntsman and Redback jumping spiders 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Naming of Atrax venom 

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  A good editor, please 

message: 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.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources_and_notability.
146.23.68.40 (talk) 15:20, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed.P0M (talk) 03:51, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources don't meet Wiki's criteria 

message: 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)
thread_title:  What spiders are aware of. 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Need to change info in the grid 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Weird behavior on system 

message: --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: I am sure someone could help with access. Drop me a note.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:08, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: 2011 Lancet review

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Very strange claim -- I'm prepared to delete it 

message: 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)
thread_title: Why is there a separate stub called [[Arachnidism]]?

message: 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)
thread_title:  spelling 

message: 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  Davey, G. C. (1994). The" disgusting" spider: The role of disease and illness in the perpetuation of fear of spiders. Society and Animals, 2(1), 17-25.
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  Bogen, E. (1926). Arachnidism: a study in spider poisoning. Journal of the American Medical Association, 86(25), 1894-1896. 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)
replies: text: Article should follow WP:MEDMOS more. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change to medical syndromes and spiders linked.  

message: Per this edit  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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Can you provide these sources? I have seen another review that says the same  Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The CDChttp://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/spiders/ 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)
thread_title: "more controversially"

message: 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)
thread_title: Nonvenomous spiders

message: 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)
thread_title:  Misleading section order