Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Recently I have been reading that the 6 eyed crab spiders, Sicurius, are heavily haemotoxic/cytotoxic, with suggestion of extreme toxicity and a very high risk of morbity in case of human envenomation. One description read...

"...massive tissue damage spreads both internally and externally throughout the system. The whole body is covered in lesions which refuse to heal. Death is the most likely prognosis..."

While I always take such claims with a pinch of salt, especially where clinical references are absent, the seems to be plenty of people, on the web at least, supporting this notion.

I find this particularly worrying as I almost bought one of these ugly little b@57ards around ten years ago from an experienced arachnologist who assured me (a young teenager at the time) that it was relatively harmless - it was cheap too! Instead I opted to save up for an orchid mantis - perhaps this was a good move!!!

Anyway, I don't suppose anyone knows what these claims might be based on and whether or not it really was a good job (I'd invariably have been bitten as I wouldn't have known it was dangerous) that I didn't get one.

Sorry again to post here but I thought this was the best place to find an informed answer. Many thanks, Lee.

Yeah these little buggers have been implicated in some rather nasty bites resulting in localised necrosis. This is actually not uncommon amoung some of the Araneomorph spiders. The Araneomorphs are the ones where the fangs come together like a pincher, as opposed to the more primatively split lineage the Mygalomorphs (e.g the Australian funnelweb spiders, tarantulas etc.).

Cheers
BGF

Lee,

Sicarius appears to be the sister taxon of Loxosceles (recluse/violin spiders), and shares with that genus the possession of sphingomyelinase D (try typing that after a few pints!), which is believed to be responsible for a lot of the necrotic activity. Apparently, the compound is unique to these two genera.

There has been some nice work by G.J. Binford on this. Let me know if you can't track it down, I can e-mail you the pdfs.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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I'm rather glad I didn't get one of these now! They were actually being sold by my local butterfly park, the guy who ran it was big on his spiders and bred and imported all sorts that were sold through a pretty impressive invert store at the park. As I said though, this was 10 yrs ago if not slightly more, but it makes me wonder how many near misses there must have been as these were suggested to be a good begginers spider (even on the price list) and could well have been bought by other like minded youngsters as they really were pocket money priced at £5.

One thing I did notice is that the British dangerous wild animals act was previously listing Loxosceles under the Sicariidae (funnily enough where Sicurius resides), but only prohibited Loxosceles specifically, while the proposed revision re-lists Loxosceles under Loxoscelidae and lists no Sicuriidae at all. Perhaps it would be a worthwile addition. Will have a look for Binfords work on these.

Thanks again to you both, Lee.