New first-aid treatment for (some) snake bites

First aid for snake bite has ranged over the years from the ignorant (whisky, live-chicken poultices*) to the formerly accepted but now discounted (incision and suction, ice packs), to the hilariously irrelevant (“Wash the bite with soap and water”—American Red Cross) to outright quackery (electric shock). Since no one has as yet developed an antivenom suitable for field use by non-medical personnel, the single “treatment” recommended by all authorities is “Get the victim to a hospital”—which is okay if you’re two hours from a city and run afoul of a rattlesnake, not so okay if an eastern brown snake nails you two days from Alice Springs. (*Cut open a live chicken and spread it over the bite to extract the venom. When the chicken’s comb turns blue, you’re cured.)

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Update to our tarantula spider post

In our July ConserVentures News, we included a short story about enjoying watching a female tarantula spider whose hole is next to the door to our cottage. Recently, just across the compound near the office porch, we found this little guy—a tarantula spiderling, about the size of a silver dollar at most. He spends most of his time in the hole, and even catches the moths we drop to him. According to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, tarantulas in the Sonoran Desert lay their eggs in burrows and sometimes but not always stay with them. There could be more spiderlings in the hole, or he is the only one, we are not sure.