On Wednesday, November 5, 2003 11:57:19 PM UTC, Peter Rees wrote:   
   > DADDY LONG LEGS.   
   >    
   > THE MYTH   
   > The myth says that the Daddy long legs is the most toxic spider on   
   > earth… it just doesn't have fangs long enough to bite humans   
   >    
   >    
   > THE SETUP   
   > This experiment was performed with the assistance of Chuck Kristensen   
   > of SpiderPharm in Arizona. We hoped to achieve five things   
   > 1) Collect enough venom to perform testing. We ended up milking over   
   > 400 spiders to get a total of ten microliters of venom   
   > 2) Test the venom in an animal model   
   > 3) Compare the venom to a known dose of Black Widow Venom   
   > 4) Measure the fangs of a Daddy Long Legs.   
   > 5) Provoke a Daddy long legs to bite one of our hosts   
   >    
   >    
   > THE DADDY LONG LEGS.   
   > Of course as we all know there are at least three creatures that are   
   > collectively referred to as the Daddy Long Legs   
   > 1) The crane fly a mosquito relative   
   > 2) The Harvest man opilionids … not a spider at all and has no venom    
   > 3) The Cellar spider or pholcidae… this is the only spider in the   
   > list. For our experiment we chose to use Genus Physocyclus Mexicanus.   
   >    
   >    
   > MILKING   
   > Chuck Kristensen loaned us his milking gear. The spider is first   
   > anaesthetized with carbon dioxide. It's venom glands are stimulated   
   > with a weak electrical current, regurgitated vomit is sucked off with   
   > a vacuum needle and venom is collected using a micro pipette.   
   >    
   >    
   > THE ANIMAL MODEL   
   > The resulting venom was injected into nine mice. Three were injected   
   > subcutaneously, Three where injected into the peritoneal cavity and   
   > three were injected intravenously via the tail vein. All venom doses   
   > were one micro litre. The peritoneal injection is designed to directly   
   > act on the animal's internal organs. All testing conducted by Chuck   
   > was conducted on anaesthetised animals, in a veterinary clinic with a   
   > specialist on standby.   
   >    
   >    
   > THE BLACK WIDOW   
   > Three spiders were injected with one micro litre of Black Widow venom   
   > as a comparison. The injections were made subcutaneously, in the   
   > peritoneal cavity, and intravenously.   
   >    
   >    
   > ANIMAL MODEL RESULTS - MYTHBUSTED   
   > Two out of three Black widow envenomations died. One subcutaneous and   
   > one IP the intravenous didn't work. Two of nine daddy long legs died   
   > both were intraperitoneal. And there is one aspect of the Myth Busted   
   > right there. Whilst toxic, the Daddy-Long-legs are definitely less   
   > toxic than the Black Widow.  Interestingly the mice   
   >    
   >    
   > LENGTH OF FANG   
   > Now onto the second part of the myth, that is a daddy long legs fangs   
   > are too short to bite humans. Turns out the myth is busted again… we   
   > measured the fang length of our spiders at an average 0.22 mm. That   
   > would easily penetrate the layer of dead skin on the surface of human   
   > flesh, which has a thickness of 0.05 – 0.1mm   
   >    
   > HUMAN TESTING.   
   > Not wanting to leave a stone unturned… both Hosts… Jamie and Adam,   
   > plunged their arms into a tube filled with forty daddy long legs   
   > spiders. It took a while… but eventually we got a bite on poor old   
   > Adam. In his words, it was equivalent to someone dropping a little bit   
   > of warm water onto the surface of your skin… the sensation went away   
   > almost immediately.   
   >    
   > MYTH TOTALLY AND DEFINITAVELY BUSTED.   
      
   Thanks helped with my Daughters project and we both learnt something knew.   
   kellee   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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