Invertebrates:bees, wasps, centipedes and moths

Welcome back to evolution of venom, Today’s blog topic, we will be covering bees, wasps, centipedes and moths and how they use their venom. A brief recap: we covered cone snails, jellyfish, and sea urchins and how they use their venom.

Bees are flying insects that belong to the order Hymenoptera, superfamily Apoidea that produces honey and beeswax, they are known for their role in pollination and live mostly in large colonies (Danforth et al, 2006). Bee venom comes from the poison gland that contains a variety of toxins and chemicals, bee stings are dangerous to both humans and bees as the stinger that introduces the venom into the human’s system is torn from the abdomen causing the death of the bee. Some humans can have a severe reaction to bee venom causing shock and death (Warrell, 2015). Below is a diagram of a honey bee. 

Diagram of honeybee by exploringnature

 

Wasps are another flying insect that belongs to the order Hymenoptera, but belongs to the family Vespoidea. A majority of wasps are carnivores, feeding on grubs, spiders, and other insects. Many species of wasps live in solitary but they can live in social colonies with a queen, workers and drones with the worker wasps been sterile. Unlike bees who died after losing their stinger, wasps can use their stinger repeatedly (Wasps, 2017). Below is a diagram of a sterile worker wasp.

By WikipedianProlific at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.

 

Centipedes are arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda, Phylum Arthropoda. Their body is made up of a flattened head with a trunk composed of segments (somites). The head has long antennas, jaws and two pairs of maxillae used for food handling. The appendages on the trunks first segment has claws that have been modified to allow poison glands to deliver venom to stun or kill prey (Centipedes, 2017). Below is a diagram of a centipede.

 

Diagram of a centipede by enchantedlearning.

 

Moths belong to the order Lepidoptera (same as butterflies), although most moths are not venomous, two families (Megalopygidae and Saturniidae) have had human deaths by these moths. The Lonomia obliqua (Giant silkworm moth) larval form has spines with venom that when broken, the venom enters the bloodstream causing mild nausea, burning pain and headache, then progresses to haematuria, bleeding from scars, and severe haemorrhagic syndrome (Spadacci-Morena, 2006). Below is a diagram of a Lonomia obliqua larval.

By Centro de Informações Toxicológicas de Santa Catarina

 

In next weeks’ blog, we be covering vertebrates that use venom. Below are the articles used in this week’s blog for more reading about these animals.

 

References 

Centipede. (2017). In P. Lagasse, & Columbia University, The Columbia encyclopedia (7th ed.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Danforth, B.N., Sipes, S., Fang, J. & Brady, S.G. 2006, "The History of Early Bee Diversification Based on Five Genes Plus Morphology", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 103, no. 41, pp. 15118-15123.

Spadacci-Morena, D.D., Soares, M.A.M., Moraes, R.H.P., Sano-Martins, I.S. & Sciani, J.M. 2016, "The urticating apparatus in the caterpillar of Lonomia obliqua (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae)", Toxicon : official journal of the International Society on Toxinology, vol. 119, pp. 218-224.

Warrell, D.A. 2015;2016;, "Venomous animals", Medicine, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 120-124

Wasp. (2017). In P. Lagasse & Columbia University, The Columbia encyclopedia. (7th ed.).

Picture references

https://www.exploringnature.org/db/view/Honeybee

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Wasp_morphology.png

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/invertebrates/arthropod/Centipede.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonomia_obliqua#/media/File:Lonomia-obliqua-citsc-1.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Invertebrates: cone snails, jellyfish, and sea urchins

Welcome back to evolution of venom, Today’s blog topic, we will be covering the cone snail, jellyfish and sea urchins and how they use their venom.

Cone snails are marine gastropods belong to the family Conidae that prey on worms, molluscs and fish. Cone snails hunt by using their siphon to track prey, they use their proboscis to shoot a radula tooth to inject venom in the prey. They prey is immediate paralysed, allowing the snail to swallow the prey whole (Dutertre et al, 2014). Below is a diagram of a cone snail and how they hunt fish.

Anatomy of a cone snail and their hunting strategy by Ocean’s treasure  

Jellyfish are soft-bodied invertebrates that belong to the phylum Cnidaria, they mostly feed on small fish and prawns. Jellyfish float in the water and rely on their venomous tentacles to catch prey or defend themselves from other predators (Warrell, 2015). The tentacles have over a million sting capsules that when they come into contact with prey, they release small harpoons into the prey and bring it closer to them to eat (Junghanss & Bodio, 2006). Below is a diagram of a box sea jelly.

Anatomy of a box sea jelly by Ocean’s treasure 

Sea urchins are spiny echinoderms that belong to the class Echinoidea. Their shells are round and spiny, with the spines and tube feet helping them move across the ocean floor. Sea urchins mostly feed on algae, but will feed on slow moving animals. Their venom comes from their spines that when threatened or step on, the spines become embedded in the skin, causing extreme pain (Warrell, 2015). Below is a diagram of a sea urchin.

Anatomy of a sea urchin by Ocean’s treasure 

 

Next week blog, we will be covering bee’s, wasps, centipedes and moths that use venom. Below the articles used in this week blog for more reading at their venom.

 

Article references

Dutertre, S., Jin, A., Alewood, P. & Lewis, R. 2014, "Intraspecific variations in Conus geographus defence-evoked venom and estimation of the human lethal dose", TOXICON, vol. 91, pp. 135-144

 

Dutertre, S., Jin, A., Vetter, I., Hamilton, B., Sunagar, K., Lavergne, V., Dutertre, V., Fry, B., Antunes, A., Venter, D., Alewood, P. & Lewis, R. 2014, "Evolution of separate predation- and defence-evoked venoms in carnivorous cone snails", NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, vol. 5, no. 3521, pp. 3521-9

 

Warrell, D.A. 2015;2016;, "Venomous animals", Medicine, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 120-124

 

Junghanss, T. & Bodio, M. 2006, "Medically Important Venomous Animals: Biology, Prevention, First Aid, and Clinical Management", Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 43, no. 10, pp. 1309-1317

 

Picture references

http://otlibrary.com/conus-snail/

http://otlibrary.com/box-sea-jelly/

http://otlibrary.com/sea-urchin/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Invertebrate: spiders

Hello again. Welcome back to Evolution of venom. Today blog topic, we will be covering more about invertebrates that use venom. A recap from the last blog: we covered what an invertebrate is and scorpions and their venom.

 

Spiders belong to the order Araneae that is a part of the arachnid’s family, that includes scorpions and ticks. Below is a diagram of the internal anatomy of a female two-lunged spider with the venom gland located just below the simple eye.

Internal anatomy of a female two-lunged spider by John Henry (1996)
 

Spider venom is introduced to the body by the fangs connected to the venom gland, some species of spider fangs are too small to penetrate human skin or their venom is too weak to produce any effects (Junghanss & Bodio, 2006). Brown/black widows, wandering spiders and funnel web spiders have neurotoxic venom that cause vomiting, fever, muscle spasms, sweating, cramping pains and alteration in blood pressure and heart rate (Warrell, 2015-2016). Spider venom is used to make anti-venom that is used for extreme cases depending on which spider species caused the bite (Hardy, Cochrane & Allavena, 2014).

In next weeks’ blog, we be covering the cone snail, jellyfish and sea urchins that use venom. Below are three articles about spider venom used for this post.

 References

Hardy, M.C., Cochrane, J. & Allavena, R.E. 2014, "Venomous and Poisonous Australian Animals of Veterinary Importance: A Rich Source of Novel Therapeutics", BioMed Research International, vol. 2014, pp. 1-12.

Junghanss, T. & Bodio, M. 2006, "Medically Important Venomous Animals: Biology, Prevention, First Aid, and Clinical Management", Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 43, no. 10, pp. 1309-1317

Warrell, D.A. 2015;2016;, "Venomous animals", Medicine, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 120-124.

Picture reference

Spider_internal_anatomy.png: John Henry Comstock Conversion to SVG: Pbroks13 (Ryan Wilson) (talk)  -  Anatomical information and original diagram from The Spider Book (1912, 1920) by John Henry Comstock Additional anatomical information from Biology of Spiders (1996) by Rainer F. Foelix