Inter-individual variability in equine antibody responses to African snake venoms follows heavy-tailed distributions with implications for antivenom production

  Inter-individual variability in equine antibody responses to African snake venoms follows heavy-tailed distributions with implications for antivenom production Abstract Variability in the antibody response of horses used for snake antivenom manufacture is well recognized, yet its statistical structure and implications for industrial productivity remain poorly characterized. In this study, we quantified antivenom antibody titers by ELISA in a cohort of 14 horses immunized with venoms from the clinically most important snakes in sub-Saharan Africa. To integrate antibody levels with plasma availability, we calculated the Cumulative Plasma Productivity (CPP) by converting individual plasma volumes into titer-corrected equivalents and sequentially pooling these volumes according to their corrected contribution. Distributional analysis revealed right-skewed, heavy-tailed patterns better approximated by a log-normal model than by a strict Pareto (power-law) form, with approximately 20–3...

A new species of ant-eating spider (Araneae: Zodariidae) from the Kyzylkum Desert of Uzbekistan, with colour variation possibly associated with substrate

 


A new species of ant-eating spider (Araneae: Zodariidae) from the Kyzylkum Desert of Uzbekistan, with colour variation possibly associated with substrate

ABSTRACT

A new species of ant-eating spider, Zodariellum gromovi sp. n. (male, female; Zodariidae), is diagnosed, illustrated and described from the central part of the Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan. The new species, collected from three localities, exhibits considerable colour variation that appears to be correlated with the type of substrate it inhabits. The potential for these colour morphs to represent independent lineages is briefly discussed, and the distribution of Zodariellum species in Uzbekistan is mapped.

Fomichev, A. A., & Zamani, A. (2026). A new species of ant-eating spider (Araneae: Zodariidae) from the Kyzylkum Desert of Uzbekistan, with colour variation possibly associated with substrate. Journal of Natural History60(21–24), 1181–1191. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2026.2655399