Bite
Like almost all other spiders, Argiope are harmless to humans. Like most garden spiders they eat insects, and they are capable of consuming prey up to twice their size. A. savigny was even reported to occasionally feed on the small bat Rhynchonycteris naso. They might bite if grabbed, but other than for defense they do not attack large animals. Their venom is not regarded as a serious medical problem for humans; it often contain a library of polyamine toxins with potential as therapeutic medicinal agents. Notable among these is the Argiotoxin ArgTX-636 (A. lobata).
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Famous quotes containing the word bite:
“What a hell of an economic system! Some are replete with everything while others, whose stomachs are no less demanding, whose hunger is just as recurrent, have nothing to bite on. The worst of it is the constrained posture need puts you in. The needy man does not walk like the rest; he skips, slithers, twists, crawls.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“How vainly shall we endeavor to repress crime by our barbarous punishment of the poorer class of criminals so long as children are reared in the brutalizing influences of poverty, so long as the bite of want drives men to crime.”
—Henry George (1839–1897)