Yes, black widows are found in Connecticut.
NPR's Living on Earth featured a story on black widow spiders.
An excerpt: "By the time I saw the doctor I was feeling really queasy. He explained the hospital had antivenin but it's expensive, and they reserve it for the worst reactions. He said that when the pain arrived, even opiates were not going to help. He gave me some anti-convulsant and he sent me home. What happened next, I can only compare with childbirth . . ." Read the full story link here.)
Professor Glenn King, formerly of the University of Connecticut, worked at The University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, (IMB, Australia) to further develop his pioneering approach to insecticide discovery.
“Since spiders have been developing insecticidal compounds for almost 400 million years, I decided to study venoms to find natural toxins that might kill insects without harming vertebrates,” Professor King said.
He has since described three families of insecticidal compounds, and moved back to Australia with the help of a $576,000 Australian Research Council grant entitled “Safeguarding Australia against invasive arthropod pests."
An increasingly serious public health issue for Australia (and the world) is the emergence of infectious diseases spread by insects such as ticks and mosquitoes. Venomix is a company is based on the work of Dr. King.
Under development are new insecticidal compounds targeted at the agricultural, specialty non-crop, and animal health markets, which have a combined market value (for insecticides only) of $15 billion. (The applied insecticides are not harmful to humans. The diseases carried by mosquitoes and ticks are.)
Today, Venomix has identified more than 50 unique, insecticidal spider peptides. The company was just selected as a "Michigan 50 Companies to Watch" award recipient for 2009.
The award will be presented to John McIntyre, Ph.D., president and CEO, at the 2009 Michigan Celebrates Small Business awards ceremony on April 30 in Lansing, Mich. The company employs 8 people at its corporate headquarters and research facilities located in the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center.
Image from National Institute of Health library.
For more about spiders and how to identify them, here.
Note: Be aware that black widows do not usually present with the dramatic red hourglass shape visible (it's on their underside). They do prefer undisturbed quiet places; use caution when moving woodpiles or cleaning out older homes, roofs and gutters and attic corners.
