When Tarantula Venom Comes from a Misnamed Spider: The Importance of Taxonomic Accuracy in Theraphosid Toxinology

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  When Tarantula Venom Comes from a Misnamed Spider: The Importance of Taxonomic Accuracy in Theraphosid Toxinology I am very happy to share my most recent publication in Toxicon. This is a particularly meaningful publication for me because it brings together two areas that have become an important part of my work and personal interests: tarantulas and toxinology. At first glance, taxonomy and venom research may seem like two very different fields. In reality, they are closely connected. Before we can properly study the venom of a spider, we need to know which spider we are actually studying. Why the Name Matters A scientific name is much more than a label attached to an animal. It connects that animal to everything we report about it, including its biology, distribution, behavior, venom, toxins, and even its potential medical importance. When a tarantula is incorrectly identified, or when an outdated name continues to be used without considering changes in taxonomy, the problem ca...

Predation by Pholcus spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae) on tarantulas (Araneae: Theraphosidae)

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Pet theraphosid spiders as prey of Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805 in captivity in Poland.
1. Hapalopus formosus; 2. Monocentropus balfouri; 3. Caribena versicolor.

Predation by Pholcus spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae) on tarantulas (Araneae: Theraphosidae)

Synanthropic species of spiders – those that live in associationwith or benefit from humans and their environments – mayhunt various types of arthropods inside houses (Uhlenhaut, 2001).Among other taxa, numerous species of synantrhopic spiders preyon other spiders. This feeding behaviour is particularly common in spiders of the genus Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805, which havebeen observed preying on a variety of araneomorph spider taxa (Uhlenhaut, 2001; Sherwood, 2019). In Poland, the genus Pholcus is represented by three species (Nentwig et al., 2024).

Szymański, Dawid & Szymański, Dominik. (2025). Predation by Pholcus spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae) on tarantulas(Araneae: Theraphosidae). Newsletter of the British Arachnological Society 163: Summer 20225