Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, lorn bogabam here. What's the world's deadliest spider?
Speaker 1: Despite their reputation for being kind of creepy, of the
Speaker 1: nearly forty thousand known species of spiders, only a tiny
Speaker 1: fraction of them can inflict any significant pain or other
Speaker 1: harm in humans. In fact, there's no wholly accepted consensus
Speaker 1: on what the world's deadliest spider is, because by and large,
Speaker 1: spiders aren't that much of a threat to our well being.
Speaker 1: That said, there are a handful of arachnids around the
Speaker 1: world that it would be in our best interests to avoid.
Speaker 1: The overall morbidity rate of venomous spiders remains below ten,
Speaker 1: but some of their poisons can induce tissue degeneration, cell death, nausea,
Speaker 1: and other unpleasant side effects. Venomous spiders are equipped with
Speaker 1: a poison gland that harbors the day jerous compounds. Those
Speaker 1: glands are connected to a set of fangs that spiders
Speaker 1: use to deliver the venom into their victims. The fangs
Speaker 1: usually remain tucked inside the spider's jaws until it feels threatened.
Speaker 1: When that happens, it releases those fangs, digging them into
Speaker 1: the victim's body and secreting the venom. And not all
Speaker 1: spider bites are potentially wounding, though many spiders will give
Speaker 1: dry bites without venom as a warning. In the United States,
Speaker 1: people worry most about the fangs of the brown recluse
Speaker 1: and black widow spiders. A bite from a brown recluse
Speaker 1: can leave you with significant scarring from tissue necrosis if
Speaker 1: left untreated, but odds are strongly in your favor of survival.
Speaker 1: You can identify brown recluses by the violin shaped marking
Speaker 1: on their abdomens. Statistically, black widows, with their red hourglass
Speaker 1: calling card, pose more of a threat to humans. Before
Speaker 1: doctors discovered anti venom for the widow family of spiders,
Speaker 1: the mortality rate for by victims was around five percent.
Speaker 1: Though there isn't a definitive answer to what the world's
Speaker 1: deadliest spider is, experts often place the Sydney funnel web
Speaker 1: spider at the top of the list. This arachnant species
Speaker 1: bears responsibility for the highest number of bites and human
Speaker 1: fatalities among all spiders with fangs strong enough to penetrate
Speaker 1: finger and toenails in extreme cases, a funnel web bite
Speaker 1: can kill a person in fifteen minutes. As you may
Speaker 1: guess from its name, the Sydney funnel web spider is
Speaker 1: native to the area around Sydney, Australia. Humans encounter the
Speaker 1: dark colored funnel web spiders mostly during mating season in
Speaker 1: summer in fall, when the males leave their burrows in
Speaker 1: search of females. However, since the discovery of a funnel
Speaker 1: web anti venom in no one has died from its bite. Behaviorally,
Speaker 1: funnel web spiders are more dangerous than either black widows
Speaker 1: or brown reclusives because they kin of aggressive when threatened,
Speaker 1: meaning that if you've tried to shoe one away, it
Speaker 1: would be less likely to skittterr off. The adult male
Speaker 1: funnel webs are potentially more harmful than females and juvenile spiders,
Speaker 1: and they're the most likely to attack. The active ingredient
Speaker 1: in funnel web venom is a type of neurotoxin that
Speaker 1: causes our nerve cells to continually fire once it enters
Speaker 1: the bloodstream. That rapid firing sparks intense pain at the
Speaker 1: bite site that will start within twenty eight minutes of
Speaker 1: the actual bite. In general, spider venom affects humans by
Speaker 1: interacting with ion receptors in our cells. When that happens,
Speaker 1: it unnaturally excites the cell, which can lead to pain
Speaker 1: and cell dysfunction. On the other side of the world,
Speaker 1: the Brazilian wandering spider often ranks near the top of
Speaker 1: the list two. It's capable of injecting one to two
Speaker 1: milligrams of venom in its victims. You can spot these
Speaker 1: spiders by the red hairs on their necks. Like the
Speaker 1: funnel of The Brazilian wandering spider has aggressive tendencies and
Speaker 1: is known as a hunting spider. It's venom effects sodium
Speaker 1: ion receptors, particularly in muscle and sensory cells. Bites from
Speaker 1: these spiders account for around half of spider related hospitalizations
Speaker 1: in South America. Getting bitten by any of these spiders
Speaker 1: would probably be an unpleasant experience, but today even the
Speaker 1: most venomous spiders with the largest sharpest fangs don't pose
Speaker 1: much of a health threat to humans thanks to anti
Speaker 1: venin's and just be careful when you're working in a
Speaker 1: dark corner of your basement or storage shed. Spiders often
Speaker 1: don't want to attack, but they will defend their territory
Speaker 1: when they think it's necessary. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article what's the World's Deadliest spider on house toffworks
Speaker 1: dot com written by Kristen Conger. Brain Stuff is production
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Speaker 1: and is produced by Tyler Client four more podcasts my
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