Spider and centipede venom evolved from insulin-like hormone
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 20:20
in Biology & Nature
This is a Darling Downs funnel-web spider. Its venom evolved from an insulin-like hormone. Funnel-web spider venom contains powerful neurotoxins that instantly paralyze prey (usually insects). Millions of years ago, however, this potent poison was just a hormone that helped ancestors of these spiders regulate sugar metabolism, similar to the role of insulin in humans. Surprisingly, this hormone's weaponization--described on June 11 in the journal Structure--occurred in arachnids as well as centipedes, but in different ways.