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...

Three new species of the segmented spider genus Songthela (Araneae: Mesothelae: Liphistiidae) from Guizhou, China

 


Three new species of the segmented spider genus Songthela (Araneae: Mesothelae: Liphistiidae) from Guizhou, China

Abstract

Three new species of the primitively segmented spider genus Songthela Ono, 2000 are described from Guizhou, China: S. chunguang sp. nov. (♂♀), S. congjiang sp. nov. (♂♀), and S. jinxing sp. nov. (♂♀). All three species are assigned to the multidentata-group based on morphology of the male palps and female genitalia. Detailed diagnoses, descriptions, photographs and a distribution map are provided. Mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences of the holotypes are also presented to facilitate future identification and molecular studies.

Yuan, J., Zhang, Y. & Xu, X. (2026) Three new species of the segmented spider genus Songthela (Araneae: Mesothelae: Liphistiidae) from Guizhou, China. Zootaxa, 5792 (1), 157–166. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5792.1.8