We return to our irregularly scheduled program. I am settling into my second week in the new job. I will be reporting on some roadside vegetation updates quite soon. Not today though!
Bonus Fun Fact: Almost all spiders are venomous. Almost. I bring this up because I was recently confronted with a presentation that claimed “all spiders are venomous.” I’ve been a biologist long enough to know that such blanket statements are often not true. There’s a lot of wiggle room in biology and there is damn near always an exception. See what I did there?
Anyway, contrary to what might be popular belief, not all spiders are venomous. Bucking the blanket statement, a small group of spiders in the family Uloboridae completely lack venom glands. They can bite, but they can’t inject venom. That leaves more than 45,000 species of other spiders that are venomous. Don’t be afraid though. Of all those spiders, very few of them have strong enough venom to affect humans and many of them don’t have fangs big enough to pierce skin. That makes you feel better, right?
Jason E. Andersen 
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