Spiders And Spider Bite Tips

What this episode covers

http://keywebco.strikingly.com/blog/spiders-and-spider-bite-tipsSpiders can be found in garages, basements, attics, cabinets, sheds, gardens, woodpiles, in the garbage, under tree bark, and inside of homes. Spiders have four pairs of legs and fangs at the ends of their mouths to bite the prey and inject venom. Tips All spiders are predatory eight-legged creatures that have organs to spin silk at the back ends of their bodies. Spiders all have the ability to bite with venom-injecting fangs to kill prey and nearly all of them are poisonous. There are about 40,000 types of spiders in the world, living on every continent except Antarctica. They're not newbies: fossilized spiders have been found in Carboniferous rocks dating back 318million years. Spiders have two body segments, the abdomen and the cephalothorax. The spider's jaws, called the chelicerae, are tipped with fangs, according to entomologists at the University of Kentucky. These appendages are used to hold prey while the spider injects venom. Behind the jaws are the labium and labrum, which work together to direct food into the spider's mouth. Between the chelicerae and the first pair of legs are the pedipalps, which look like tiny legs but are actually similar to antennae, and are used to sense objects the spider encounters Most spiders have six or eight eyes, according to the University of Kentucky. Some spiders can only see the difference between light and shadow. A spider's abdomen is where most of its important internal organs are located, such as the reproductive system, lungs, and digestive tract. 75 Facts about Spiders Also on the abdomen are the spinnerets, through which a spider produces its silken web. Some spiders use their webs to trap prey; others line their burrows with it. Spiders are grouped according to the type of web they make Groups include tangle-web spiders, orb-web spiders, funnel-web spiders, and nursery-web spiders. According to the Australian Museum, spiders capture prey using a variety of methods. Spider guts are too narrow to take solids, so they liquidize their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes and grinding it up with short appendages. Even though all spiders can bite, most of them do no more harm to a human than a bee sting or a mosquito bite. Most spiders with a life-threatening bite are quiteshy and attack only when they feel threatened. According to Spider Physiology and Behaviour, Volume 41, there were only about 100 deaths from spider bites during the 20th century. Spider venoms work on one of two fundamental principles: they either attack the nervous system with neurotoxic venom or attack tissues around the bite with necrotic venom. Researchers are investigating novel uses for spider venom, from an eco-friendly alternative to pesticides to treatments for Alzheimer's disease, cardiac arrhythmia, and strokes. Spider silk has lots of engineering uses, from body armor to optical communications. Arachnophobia, or fear of spiders, is one of the most common phobias. According to Mentally Healthy, evolutionary biologists surmise that a modern fear of spiders may be an exaggerated form of an instinctive response that helped early humans to survive. Other scholars think that fear of spiders began in the Middle Ages, when spiders became a cultural scapegoat for inexplicable epidemics of the time, like the plague. Spiders can be divided into two suborders: Mesotelae and Opisthothelae, which contains the infraorders Mygalomorphaeand Araneomorphae. The members of this family are quite distinctive from all other spiders. that the Mesothelae suborder is so named because its members have their spinnerets located on the middle of the abdomen, on their underside. According to the Australian Museum, these are"Primitive spiders"; "Modern" spiders have spinnerets toward the back of their abdomens. Though scientists previously thought they lacked venom glands, new research has shown that they do have the

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