Tityus venom studies....and also, opinions please?

Venom

Arachnoprince
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Hey guys,

I've been considering another scorpion purchase lately, (T. stigmurus) and so have been researching the toxicity of my potential purchase. In the process I found several interesting studies on Tityus venom and decided to share them here. Particularly useful, I thought, is one article (first in the list below) which studies the effects of T. stigmurus venom on children, using a sample size of 1,618 child envenomations. Here are the links:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0037-86822013000400484&script=sci_arttext

http://www.rbcf.usp.br/Edicoes/Volumes/V37N1/PDF/v37n1p39-44.pdf

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/13/362

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/jvatitd/v17n3/13.pdf


Also, I'm trying to determine what to expect from a sting by T. stigmurus. My general rule is that I only purchase inverts I am confident I could survive, should the worst happen. I am fine with pain-and-agony-inducing stings (for reference, I already have Hottentotta caboverdensis, and I'm not worried about that scorp). I am not fine with something that would truly be life-threatening to me and/ or my wife. I have read that its LD50 is 0.773 mg/kg, and that it is less dangerous than T. serrulatus. However, I've found LD50's for T. serrulatus quoted as 1.062 mg/kg, and also 0.43 - 1.00 mg/kg ...thus I am not sure if T. stigmurus is more toxic or less toxic than T. serrulatus, which I have heard characterized as quite dangerous. Forum-searching on AB has resulted in this thread: ( http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?171422-T.-stigmurus-escape&highlight=stigmurus+venom ) which quips that a sting from T. stig isn't life-threatening.

Can anyone clarify for me what is to be expected from this scorpion's sting? I want to make a responsible decision. Thanks!
 

darkness975

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A lot of various factors contribute to the effect that a sting from any species of scorpion will have on an individual. I recently read about someone who was stung by a scorpion (forget the species). This person was deathly allergic to bee/wasp stings and such a sting would throw her into Anaphylaxis, however the scorpion sting had no major effects except for localized pain for a couple of hours. Theoretically the opposite could happen, where a person not affected by bee/wasp stings could have a major reaction to a scorpion. They're different venoms. There is no 100% guarantee that a person will react a certain way to a sting.

Just a thought.
 

Koh_

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if you dont want get any thing 'life-threatening' species , i'd suggest not getting tityus sp.
 

Venom

Arachnoprince
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if you dont want get any thing 'life-threatening' species , i'd suggest not getting tityus sp.
I'm not a newb, so I know it's not that simple. Some Tityus spp. are virtually non-toxic, and some are life-threatening to even adults. I've found conflicting data on this particular species, so I'm asking for a more insightful answer than "Tityus are toxic." I have an extensive background researching venomous bites and stings...but I don't have as much background studying scorpions as I do with araneids.

At 30 years old I'm also not a kid...and so far I have only found child fatalities in the literature. What I haven't found out yet is if these are capable of causing deaths in healthy adults. Is this roughly like some of the Centruroides, where only extremes of youth/ old age are at risk...or is there a credible threat to life for healthy adults also?

Is a T. stigmurus worse than an H. hottentotta sting, for instance? What I need and am asking for is more informative explanation (or comparison to other scorpion species' stings) to help me get a more fine-tuned understanding of this venom. Thanks.

Also, just a note, I've never had an allergic reaction to any venom, and I have no serious allergies to anything.
 

Scorpionluva

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For a normal healthy adult with no allergies to bees/wasps I would say tityus stigmurus is not life threatening and is a great scorpion to keep. Very easy to keep and beautiful but as mentioned previously there are a lot of factors that go into a specific person's reaction to each type of sting ( allergies to that specific venom , size/age of specimen , amount of venom injected ,etc)
I personally am allergic to honeybees and have been stung by a few " higher" level scorpions but had some astonishing reactions to them. Hottentotta trilineatus made me feel like I was gonna die but hottentotta jayakari gave me absolutely no pain and a somewhat euphoric sensation. I wouldn't suggest anybody getting stung by either of these 2 but that's my dealings with 2 I'd say are on a similar scale of venoms All in all as an example you may be able to take an LQ sting and walk away laughing and fall over dead from an emperor sting lol very unlikely but stranger things have happened on this crazy wild world we live in
 

The Snark

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I'm not sure if this will help or simply serve to muddy the water. I was reading a pathophysiology report, my kind of light reading, a few weeks ago. In the findings the researchers more or less concluded you can throw the LD50 out the window as completely useless. The average scorpion packs .1 to .6 mg of toxin which simply does not correlate to the LD50 required in a human. Essentially what they concluded was of the 3250 deaths per year from scorpion stings (WHO) the vast majority fell well under the LD50 threshold as lethal. Apparently their neurotoxin has some strange properties that are only marginally effected by dosage quantities. If memory serves, the various components of the venom may act directly or indirectly and individually or synergistically to manifest their effects.*

The only other thing I recall from the report is Buthus contributed the lions share of deaths. Something like 85%.

*I am guessing this would explain why some stings from the same or closely related scorps are flea bites while others lay you flat on your back.
 
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Michiel

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It depends on your health and the Tityus species. Toxicity of the venom even differs between populations of the same species, also in Tityus species, like i.e. Tityus bahiensis and T.serrulatus. Generally speaking:
Mild envenomation: localized pain, burning, sweating or mild edema
Moderate envenomation: sialorrhea, generalized diaphoresis, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, restlessness, drowsiness, mild tachycardia and hypertension, tachypnea in addition to local signs and symptoms.
Severe envenomation: severe hyper or hyptension, myocardial failure, pulmonary edema (very common symptom in Tityus envenomations), ECG changes involving ST segments or T waves, respiratory failure, dysrhytmias, symptomatic pancreatitis, CNS depression in addition to the above.

Short answer for an adult healthy person: you don't know untill your are stung. You do not want to get stung by the more venomous species. Expect that you would need to see a doctor after a sting incident.

Btw, I am not a doctor, I am a scorpiologist interested in Tityus species. I have no clue what CNS depressions mean i.e :). I have kept over 20 species in captivity over the years and I have this "poison index management document", specifically about Tityus species. When I would get stung, I would stay calm..fill in my sting form that I made (which species, time of sting, medical info about myself etc) and wait a couple of hours. If any serious symptoms would occur I would take the sting form and this poisonindex document with me and drive to the hospital.
 

The Snark

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It depends on your health and the Tityus species. Toxicity of the venom even differs between populations of the same species, also in Tityus species, like i.e. Tityus bahiensis and T.serrulatus. Generally speaking:
Mild envenomation: localized pain, burning, sweating or mild edema
Moderate envenomation: sialorrhea, generalized diaphoresis, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, restlessness, drowsiness, mild tachycardia and hypertension, tachypnea in addition to local signs and symptoms.
Severe envenomation: severe hyper or hyptension, myocardial failure, pulmonary edema (very common symptom in Tityus envenomations), ECG changes involving ST segments or T waves, respiratory failure, dysrhytmias, symptomatic pancreatitis, CNS depression in addition to the above.

Short answer for an adult healthy person: you don't know untill your are stung. You do not want to get stung by the more venomous species. Expect that you would need to see a doctor after a sting incident.

Btw, I am not a doctor, I am a scorpiologist interested in Tityus species. I have no clue what CNS depressions mean i.e :). I have kept over 20 species in captivity over the years and I have this "poison index management document", specifically about Tityus species. When I would get stung, I would stay calm..fill in my sting form that I made (which species, time of sting, medical info about myself etc) and wait a couple of hours. If any serious symptoms would occur I would take the sting form and this poisonindex document with me and drive to the hospital.
The symptoms of severe envenomation closely resemble myasthenia. You would want to make certain you don't already have the condition and that the ER is aware it was brought on by a toxin and isn't chronic.
CNS depression, acute, typified as a coma requiring respiratory assist.

That just seems a little weird to me: "Gee! I want to keep an animal that if it zaps me I might develop the symptoms of myasthenia gravis!" This sounds like a demented med student with a terminally softened brain.
 
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gromgrom

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friend of mine who also has kept stigmurus has gotten tagged by juvis from time to time. Said it was downright miserable, worse than getting bit by a Haplopelma sp.

I have a colony of about 100 and honestly do not take enough safety precautions when doing maintenance. :p Which is something I'm working on, as they're the most sting happy scorpion I keep besides my Andros.
 

Venom

Arachnoprince
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Thanks everyone for your input! I have decided to put off T. stigmurus for now, and go for C. limbatus as my next foray into scorpions. I am easing into buthids gradually, and T. stigmurus is a bit more toxic than I want to take on until I have more scorpion-specific experience. I'm confident of my abilities with pretty much any T or true spider, but I don't want to take buthids lightly or get in too far too soon. I'll quite possibly go for T. stigmurus at a later date, but not for now.

Thanks again for all your perspectives and information!

...and now I have two lovely Centruroides on the way! :D
 
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