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Updated: Mar 21, 2026
Harvesting Venom Toxins from Assassin Bugs and Other Heteropteran Insects
Published on: April 21, 2018
Low cost venom extractor based on Arduino(®) board for electrical venom extraction from arthropods and other small
Thomas Besson1, Delphine Debayle2, Sylvie Diochot1
1CNRS, Institut de Pharmacologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, UMR 7275, 06560 Valbonne, France; Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, UMR 7275, 06560 Valbonne, France; LabEx Ion Channel Science and Therapeutics, UMR 7275, 06560 Valbonne, France.
Abstract:
Extracting venom from small species is usually challenging. We describe here an affordable and versatile electrical venom extractor based on the Arduino(®) Mega 2560 Board, which is designed to extract venom from arthropods and other small animals. The device includes fine tuning of stimulation time and voltage. It was used to collect venom without apparent deleterious effects, and characterized for the first time the venom of Zoropsis spinimana, a common spider in French Mediterranean regions.
