SPIDERS

In South Africa, there are 64 different families of spiders which can be divided into 2 sub-orders: the Mygalomorphs and the Araneomorphs.

Characteristics of Mygalomorphs:

• 2 pairs of booklungs
• chelicerae that strike forwards and downwards
• medium to large
• sedentary groundwellers
• ex: Beboon spider, Trapdoor spider

Characteristics of Araneomorphs

• 1 pair of booklungs
• chelicerae that work against each other from side to side
• web-making
• ex: Golden orb-web spider

Attention: Spiders, Scorpions and Snakes are venomous: they inject venom into other animals (# poisonous: ingested, eaten).

Venomous spider

The factors that could influence the severity of a spider bite are:

• the amount of venom
• the sight of the bite (more effective on facial)
• the age, the health, the allergies of the victim

NEUROTOXIC venom:

It affects the neuromuscular synapses and causes heart palpitations, difficulty breathing, raised blood pressure, severe pains in the chest and abdomen, an extreme anxiety.

The genus Latrodectus is medically important.

Only the bite of a Black button spider need a immediate medical attention.

CYTOTOXIC venom:

It affects the cellular tissues around the site of the bite and sometimes the tissues throughout the body. It is painless, the first symptome is a inflamed red bump; but severe symptomes develop slowly, it becomes painfull, ulcerating into a large surface lesion.

Families Loxoscelidae (Violin spiders); Clubionidae (Sac spiders); Sicariidae (Six-eyed crab spider).

The Sicarius are the most poisonous cytotoxin that is known is South Africa.