User talk:Martin Huber

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Welcome to the English-language Wikipedia
I'm assuming that this is the reknowned arachnologist, who often edits the spider articles on the German Wikipedia (and whose papers are routinely cited in thes pages); it will be an excellent addition to have your expertese here in the English version (as opposed to my unfortunate attempts to translate your work). If you haven't already, I invite you to join WikiProject_Spiders; a bunch of editors on the English Wikipedia are working on improving the coverage of the topic here, and having an expert such as yourself on board will be most helpful.

Again, welcome!

--EngineerScotty 16:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello Scott, thanks for the warm welcome. BTW, I am no arachnologist, just a hobbyist with a deep interest (= keeping, breeding, phylogenetic, etc) in theraphosids, especially the subfamily Ornithoctoninae. --Martin Huber 09:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

A question for you
Since I have the expert on the phone... :) in various online resources and such, there is a lot of commentary on the toxicity of the venom of Haplopelma, in particular species such as H. huwenum (commonly known in English as the "Chinese bird spider", though that designation appears to apply to several species), whose venom seems to be a favorite topic of study among biochemists and medical researchers.  It's been widely reported that one of these has killed a child in China; though proper protocols in documenting such were not undertaken.  I've seen rather high LD50 reports (in mice) for these species on the web, though again, the sources were a bit questionable.  Perhaps you could point me in the direction of literature (if any exists) on this topic, so the articles can be better sourced (and/or poorly sourced claims appropriately quantified, or removed altogether).

Again, thanks much!

--EngineerScotty 17:03, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I know this story with the Haplopelma and the child in china from the internet too, but only from the internet. No proven or reliable source. => I would be VERY caution with that information/story and treat it like any other story from hearsay.
 * LD50 reports (in mice) are IMHO not very meaningful for the effect the venom may have to humans. See e.g. the article by ISBISTER et al. (2003). He studied the effects of bites by Australian theraphosid spiders in both humans and canines. While in all seven cases the dog died, and as rapidly as 0.5–2 h after the bite, the bitten humans showed no major effects.
 * reference: ISBISTER, G. K., et al. (2003): Bites by spiders of the family Theraphosidae in humans and canines. Toxicon 41: 519-524.
 * --Martin Huber 09:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Brachypelma klaasi in captivitiy
hi,

you removed the sentence that all B. klaasi in captivity are descendants of a single collected pair, and probably rightly so (Although i think i heard Peter Klaas say this himself, but it could be that i mixed up two species). However, I would be curious how the real facts are, in case you know more about this. cheers :) --Sarefo 00:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)