OPINION — Spiders are among Earth’s most resourceful predators, nabbing prey by any means necessary. Orb weavers spin webs for capture. Wolf spiders ambush on the ground at night. Almost all spiders use venom when they hunt.
But each spider’s venom is a cocktail of ingredients as varied as their hunting behavior. Some venom ingredients can harm people, while others do not. As a result, only a few spiders threaten human health, while most are harmless and even beneficial for pest control.
In the United States, spiders that are dangerous to people include the brown recluse, which carries a necrotic toxin that destroys tissue, and the black widow, which has a special neurotoxin that damages nerve cells.
