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| Jasper watches as Dr. Binford prepares to milk a brown recluse. |
The Binford Spider Lab of the Biology Department at Lewis and Clark College had an open house. How cool is that? They are doing research on brown recluse spiders and their relatives around the world, to better understand their venom and its evolution. This has the practical application of being of use in developing a treatment that can work worldwide on the bites of many species. We watched as Greta Binford demonstrated the whole process of milking a brown recluse spider of its venom. First she placed the spider in a small glass chamber and filled it with CO2. In just a few minutes, the spider was put to sleep temporarily. She gently clamped it in place and gave it a tiny electrical shock. Then she adeptly collected the venom at the same time she vacuumed up its vomit with a tiny instrument. Dr. Binford said that the spiders remain alive and healthy after milking. The venom is stored in very small vials. The venom different spiders are injected into crickets, in varying amounts, to study how strong the venom is and what kind of effect it has. We learned that some spiders have a venom that kills their victims immediately, but the brown recluse is different. It takes a while for insects to die, but the spider is patient and will follow its victim around until dinner is ready. A children's book has been written about Dr. Binford which is rather neat:
Silk and Venom: Searching for a Dangerous Spider
by Kathryn Lasky. It's a great book and explains her research in detail.
Students were also presenting their work at the open house. Jasper was drawn like a magnet to a table covered with leaf litter. A student showed Jasper how to use tweezers to remove individual critters for closer inspection. It was fascinating to see how much nearly invisibly small life forms of all descriptions were in a few cubic inches of leaf litter. We had never seen
pseudoscorpions before, but there they were! Apparently they are quite common in Oregon and worldwide. The next time we are looking under the leaf litter, we know to say hello!
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| Brown recluse spiders to be put to sleep and milked. |
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| A brown recluse before milking. |
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| Dr. Binford milks the spider. |
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| Looking for creepy crawlies. |
The Binford Spider Lab of the Biology Department at Lewis and Clark College had an open house. How cool is that? They are doing research on brown recluse spiders and their relatives around the world, to better understand their venom and its evolution. This has the practical application of being of use in developing a treatment that can work worldwide on the bites of many species. We watched as Greta Binford demonstrated the whole process of milking a brown recluse spider of its venom. First she placed the spider in a small glass chamber and filled it with CO2. In just a few minutes, the spider was put to sleep temporarily. She gently clamped it in place and gave it a tiny electrical shock. Then she adeptly collected the venom at the same time she vacuumed up its vomit with a tiny instrument. Dr. Binford said that the spiders remain alive and healthy after milking. The venom is stored in very small vials. The venom different spiders are injected into crickets, in varying amounts, to study how strong the venom is and what kind of effect it has. We learned that some spiders have a venom that kills their victims immediately, but the brown recluse is different. It takes a while for insects to die, but the spider is patient and will follow its victim around until dinner is ready. A children's book has been written about Dr. Binford which is rather neat: Silk and Venom: Searching for a Dangerous Spider
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