The Red Hourglass: Self-Experimentation with Black Widow Bites
What amazes me is the question: what kind of evolutionary pressure would drive creatures to develop stings and venom this viscious. I would have thought nature would stop optimizing once a sting is a good enough deterrent. It is as if someone said, no, I would optimize the crap out of this chemical weapon.<p>I have always been intrigued by how much does the effect generalize across the victim species. Consider tarantula wasps, their sting take pain and suffering to new heights (for humans). But really what the wasps use it for, primarily, is to temporarily immobilize a tarantula so that it can lay eggs on it. The hatchlings end up eating the tarantula. If temporary immobilization is the main use case (surely not the only use case), must it be this painful. Is the tarantula in as much pain and if so what purpose is that serving ? It seems something that gives them a pleasure trip makes more sense.