Najakcharmer
Posts: 2121
Joined: 5/3/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Sinergy
Very few spiders can penetrate human skin. The few that can tend to give rather nasty bites.
True; the majority of spiders can't do it without assistance from the human end....eg, if they are physically compressed between clothing and skin. That is the etiology of most actual spider bites. Actual spider bites (as opposed to medically misdiagnosed "spider bites") are quite rare.
Spider bites (aka latrodectism, loxoscelism or necrotic arachnidism depending on species) are very often the subject of medical misdiagnosis. Some good papers floating around PubMed on the subject; basically, docs tend to miss a lot of the differentials and call it "spider bite" when in fact the symptoms don't match and there are no medically significant spiders in the region. It's pretty disappointing how silly a lot of docs apparently are on the subject. It must be embarrassing for a doc who keeps diagnosing S. aureus as loxoscelism when there are no Loxosceles within several hundred miles of where his patients are reporting the bites. But apparently a lot of docs are still doing this.
There are really only two spiders in the US of serious medical significance, possibly three. Latrodectus and Loxosceles (widow and recluse) and just maybe Tegenaria under rare circumstances. They don't live in all areas of the US, and where they do live, they don't bite people unless the aforementioned circumstances occur. If they are not grabbed and squished, they do not bite. One or two of the dozen-odd species of Loxosceles can be a bit feisty and all of them are skittery. Latrodectus of all species are extremely calm and pleasant to work with. I have handled every species in this genus, and they are all quite gentle and inoffensive. I cannot imagine a widow voluntarily attempting to bite a human unless it was a reflexive reaction to being squished. Loxosceles are a bit naughtier and will go for a defensive bite if they come into abrupt contact with a human. Far Side cartoons aside, spiders don't seek voluntary interaction of any kind with humans. We aren't edible and we are extremely dangerous to them.
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Same is true for millipedes and centipedes.
Millipedes aren't venomous. Centipedes are, but none of the ones in North America are particularly dangerous to humans.
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Some species of beetles bite, I dont know off the top of my head which those are.
The cone-nose beetle aka assassin beetle or "kissing bug" can produce some unpleasant symptoms including systemic ones, but isn't likely to be fatal. Caterpillar envenomations in the US have resulted in hospitalization and some have been fatal.
Biotoxins are not play toys.
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RE: bug/torture insects - 
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