They're found natively in Africa, South America, and Central and North America, with 50 species in North America. So, that-the genus that includes the brown recluse has a hundred species. But the other genus in the family has the same toxin. Taxonomically is it family? Genus?īinford: Yes. Steve: Tell me about the work you do, actually analyzing the venom of this family of spiders. So people vary a lot in how severe the reaction is. So they hide in crevices and cracks and accidents happen when people crush them in their clothing or roll over on them and it turns out that the reaction we have to brown recluse venom is one part due to the venom toxins themselves, but it's also an immune response. Steve: 2,500! Now, these are venomous spiders.īinford: They are venomous, yes, but the key is that they are not aggressive reclusive is exactly the right way to describe them. They collected over 2,500 individual brown recluse from that single house and their family was delighted, you know, these were co-habitants of a rural house with a lot of wood debris outside and, you know, we create ideal habitat for a lot of these spiders with their clutter. Well, then I'd push you up to about 10 and it's going to depend on where, which part of the country you live in, but just as an anecdote in terms of numbers, they can go varying enormously depending on how, what the habitat is like and what species are in the area, but there is a family in Kansas that had a known population of brown recluse, but none of the individuals in the family had ever had a problem with those spiders, and so they allowed people to come in and trap them. You'd at least have, I'd say, 10 species, in the physical structure of your house, not in your yard.īinford: Between five and 10, depending on how cluttered your basement is, so I think that would be one of the defining features, or your garage…īinford: Okay. Steve: How many different species and how many different individuals would you think?īinford: Oh! That's a tough question. How many spiders can you estimate I might have in my house? Steve: Tell me, this may be a hard question to answer because regions of the country are so different, but I'll ask it anyway. We're going to talk about spiders, which are really endlessly fascinating. We spoke after she talked to about 300 great school kids a couple of weeks ago at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.īinford: Hi, Steve. She studies spiders, especially the brown recluses and six-eyed sand spiders and she was a technical consultant for the movie, Spider-Man. Binford is a biology professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. First up, Greta Binford and her student, Marjorie Weber. Plus, we'll test your knowledge about some science in the news. We'll talk with spider expert Greta Binford about what makes spiders tick and we'll also hear from Samuel Bowles about how war and altruism probably had to evolve together for either to exist. Anyway, this week on the podcast, not frogs, but arachnids and altruism: spiders and struggles. It's one of those Beelzebufo ampingas if you we were listening last week. I'm Steve Mirsky and I've got a big frog in my throat. Welcome to Science Talk, the weekly podcast of Scientific American for the seven days starting February 27th, 2008.
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