Black widows

[gmayor]

I was just curious and was thinking about, what if a black widow were to bite my Tortoise would it kill him? I know some spiders have the ability to kill grown men if they are not treated so my question is can a black widow take out a russian tortoise or any tortoise in that matter? It will be great to hear some feed back on this matter?

 

[Fernando]

There are some spiders/insects so small that can bite a tortoise in a certain area and make it swell up and if not treaded can really do some damage. But generally I think tortoise skin is pretty thick and black widows from my understanding aren't really on the offense.

 

[ascott]

Hi....I had the same question on the site not too long ago...you may want to search...my question actually was if the blackwidow can penetrate the tortoise skin...there was a general idea that yes...there is plenty skin that is not covered in their tough scales...now the affect of a bite was not discussed AND I would imagine they would be affected but no idea how? I thing we have a biologist or two as members...it would be awesome to hear their input

 

[HLogic]

According to this article, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2542216/pdf/bullwho00554-0122.pdf, turtles in their study showed no effects from large doses of Latrodectus venom, although they don't specify which species and their toxins vary greatly in toxicity. Those in North America are in about the middle of the range of toxicity among the array of Latrodectus world wide.

There is a really good article in the latest issue of Reptiles and Amphibians covering Latrodectus spp. (a.k.a. Black Widows).

 

[gmayor]

that was very intreseting to read thank you for that.