Tarantulas can be very dangerous once you try to bother them, but otherwise, despite their evil appearance, they can be pretty docile creatures. Some people even choose to use them as pets in their houses.
However, tarantula’s venom can even have medical applications one day if it’s combined with other substances. It’s a new theory that will certainly leave many of us speechless. Who would have ever imagined such a scenario before?
The king baboon spider’s venom may hold the key to developing better painkillers
According to Microsoft Start, a new study suggests that venom from the king baboon spider could one day be useful in developing better painkillers. Otherwise, the spider’s bite will lead to swelling, pain, and muscle spasms. The king baboon spider is found in Tanzania and Kenia, and it’s also known as Pelinobius. The spider represents a monotypic genus of tarantulas from East Africa. The German arachnologist Ferdinand Anton Franz Karsch first described the species back in 1885.
Studying the bites of a spider should help scientists understand how pain works. Many aspects of pain are still unsolved by scientists. They stand to learn some considerable amount of info from spider venom that may have evolved in a way to inflict it a lot. Rocio Finol-Urdaneta, who’s one of the study’s co-authors, declared as Microsoft Start quotes:
One of the hallmarks of spider bites is the sensation of pain.
He added as the same source cites:
The first question is does it hurt or not, because that’s the criteria.
Let’s remind ourselves that for many years, snake venom has been used in producing antivenom. This is another argument why a similar thing can happen again – using tarantula venom to shut down pain.
The new study was published in Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences.
