Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Truth or Myth

Is it true that a dragonfly has a very toxic bite, but this is not harmful to humans because the dagonfly bite cannot break the human skin?

If true, just how poisonous would the toxins be to a human (in comparison to other poisonous creatures) if injected.

Also, is there a league table of toxicity (re: animals) with regard to humans.

And you heard this where?

I'd suggest that if you can't find it at google.com it probably isn't real.

Do you WORK for google or something?

To y,
Considering a dragonfly's predators and prey I doubt they would need a toxic bite.

Rob ...
Do I work for google. no.

But this is supposed to be a science forum. Which, one might think, would put people into the frame of mind of doing research. Apparently you think actual work too difficult so you belittle a reference to a search engine and then offer up an wholly meaningless personal opinion of near-zero value.

Why?

Prehaps you ought to look up the 'life cycle' of
the Dragon Fly.
Its unlikely they have a toxic bite, or even bite at all, since they are born and live underwater.
Only coming out and pupating into a 'D Fly' to mate, then die. As far as I can remember that completes their life cycle.

As for animal/fish toxins they rank as some of the most virilent natural poisons known.
Here is a partial list-
POISON LIST
The following estimated lethal doses are from the work of those conversant with both animal testing studies and, in some cases, human autopsy results. These data are not my conversions of animal LD50 values into human equivalents.

Fatal Adult human dose's in milligrams
[route of administration]
i.e 8 mmilligrams [bite]

Botulinum toxin A
(Clostridium botulinum; bacterium)
0.001 [oral]

Saxitoxin
(Alexandrium, Gymnodinium,
and Pyrodinium algae)
1 [oral]

Tetrodotoxin
(present in pufferfish, genus Fugu)
1 [oral]

Coral snake venom
(Micrurus fulvius fulvius)
5 [bite]

Gila monster venom
(Heloderma suspectum)
8 [bite]

VX (nerve gas)
O-Ethyl-(S)-[2-diisopropylaminoethyl]-
methylphosphonothiolate
10 [on skin]

Black mamba venom
(Dendroaspis polylepis)
15 [bite]

White phosphorus
15 [oral]

Trichothecene mycotoxins
35 [oral, skin]

Hydrogen cyanide
50 [inhalation]

Nicotine
(S)-3-(1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)pyridine
60 [oral]

Arsenic
70 [oral]

Water moccasin venom
(Agkistrodon piscivorus)
100 [bite]

Soman (nerve gas)
Pinacolyl methyl phosphonofluoridate
350 [on skin]

Strychnine
350 [oral]

Chaconine and Solanine
Potato (Solanum
tuberosum) glycoalkaloids
420 [oral]

Dimethylmercury
500 [oral]

Western diamondback rattlesnake venom
(Crotalus atrox)
560 [bite]

Mercuric chloride
1000 [oral]

Thallium sulfate (rodenticide)
1000 [oral]

Paraquat (herbicide)
1,1'-Dimethyl-4,4'-bipyridinium
1400 [oral]

Sarin (nerve gas)
Isopropyl methylphosphanofluoridate
1700 [on skin]

Chlordane (pesticide)
1,2,4,5,6,7,8,8-Octachloro-
3a,4,7,7a-tetrahydro-4,7-methanoindane
2800 [oral]

Sodium chlorate (herbicide)
3000 [oral]

Dieldrin (pesticide)
endo, exo-1,4:5,8-Dimethanonaphthalene
3500 [oral]

Tabun (nerve gas)
Ethyl N,N-dimethylphosphoramidocyanidate
4000 [on skin]

Benzene
7000 [oral]

Cadmium
7000 [oral]

Mustard gas (vesicant)
Bis-(2-chloroethyl)sulfide
7000 [on skin]

Toxaphene (pesticide)
Polychlorinated camphenes
7000 [oral]

Caffeine
1,3,7-Trimethylxanthine
10,000 [oral]

Chloroform
15,000 [oral]

Pyrethrins (pesticide)
15,000 [oral]

MCPA (herbicide)
4-Chloro-2-methylphenoxyacetic acid
31,500 [oral]

Ethylene glycol
112,000 [oral]

Isopropyl alcohol
220,000 [oral]

Ethyl alcohol
386,000 [oral]

Methoxychlor (pesticide)
2,2-Bis(p-methoxyphenyl)-1,1,1-trichloroethane
448,000 [oral]

This list is far from complete, but it does include some synthetic Nerve Gas's.
Their formulae surprisingly, some be found on the NET. Due to the 50 year moratoriam/ embargo/release of information regarding Goverment UK and US wartime patents.

Nice find, Mike. Thanks for posting it.

DA Morgan,
"...this is supposed to be a science forum. Which, one might think, would put people into the frame of mind of doing research."
My 'meaningless' statement was based on facts that I know from documentaries.
"Apparently you think actual work too difficult"
Why do you say that?
Finally, I wan't belittling your reference to a search engine, I was musing on the fact that this seems to be your answer to everything. Which I have no problem with, but FYI wikipedia is usually better.

I send people to google because the answers are easily found there along with a lot of supporting reference information of good quality.

Based on the quality of this forum ... google is often a more reliable source. And then some people are just lazy.

PS: Hopefully those documentaries weren't on television ... one of the least reliable sources of science information since the Roman empire.

Rob,
As a "lurker" on this site for many years, I have seen so many new postings that are just kind of silly questions or statements that should have been researched much better before being posted on this, so called "Scientific Forum". One would wish that people would understand what "a scientific forum" means. But many, and maybe including you, do not understand this.

There are plenty of other forums where you can discuss matters you don't want to really reserch yourself.

I will not discuss this matter further.

OK, but could you please be more specific about what you meant by "silly questions" or perhaps give an example so that I know what to look out for in the future.

"this, so called 'Scientific Forum'"
Do you go on any other scientific forums? Perhaps these other forums are less tolerant than this one. Maybe there are some 'scientific' forums on the web that allow ANYTHING to be posted. I personally like this one because it has an average level of tolerance (I think). You however may like to only hear about raw science and cut all the small-talk and rubbish out. For this I suggest going to one of the hard-core science sites (as well as this one for contrast).

"Hopefully those documentaries weren't on television ... one of the least reliable sources of science information since the Roman empire."

Just curious... Did you hear this on television?

No. I am one of that strange breed of creatures that uses libraries ... university research libraries.

I fear we are going extinct.