David Nelsen, an associate professor of biology at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee remembers sprawling on his belly under the slide at the elementary school playground, in search of the tangled web of the Latrodectus hesperus, aka the western black widow spider. He'd know it when he saw it, the sticky silk threads spun in messy snarls characteristic of such wondrous creatures. If he nudged the web with his long forceps in just the right place, he could catch the spider before it escaped and tuck it into one of his plastic bags where dozens of other black widows lay in wait.
It didn't matter that one bite from the shiny black spider could send his muscles into painful spasms within minutes; That even if he went to the emergency room writhing in pain, doctors likely wouldn't have the antivenom to treat him; That he'd have to wait out the burning, throbbing, and involuntary muscle contractions for hours or possibly days until his symptoms eventually subsided.
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