Whether you’re male or female, spiders are probably the last thing on your mind when it comes to romance. According to a study coming out of the Medical College of Georgia, however, this may not always be the case. It seems that .

The venom of the Brazilian wandering spider (also known as the banana spider) contains a complex mixture of toxins. If left untreated, the bite of a wandering spider can cause a host of nasty symptoms, including severe pain and asphyxia, as many venomous bites can, but one of the more interesting ones is priapism, or a continual erection.

Dr. Kenia Nunes, a physicist at the Medical College of Georgia, has been studying the side effect, and recently published a study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine on the venom’s potential use in treating erectile dysfunction. She and her team have isolated the toxin responsible for causing an erection and have begun testing its effectiveness on hypertensive rats. Dr. Nunes says that the toxin seems to act in a different way than common ED drugs do, which could be useful to patients who don’t respond to conventional therapy.

There is currently no information on the venom’s usefulness to sexually dysfunctional women.

Image by Techuser, via Wikimedia Commons

Tags: spider venom causes erection, Brazilian wandering spider, banana spiders, spiders cause erections, unusual animals, Dr. Kenia Nunes, Medical College of Georgia studies spider venom, potential new ED treatment

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