Venom is the word for poison that is injected, and animals have evolved some nifty ways to deliver their venom. Here's our top 5 list of unexpected venomous creatures on the planet.
The tarantula hawk, found in Utah, is a page out of a collection of horror stories. Beautiful, huge, painful, and parasitic - it's a wasp that tops the Sting Pain Index and finds its way into NHMU's "The Power of Poison" exhibit.
We don't often associate arachnids and maternal care, but our Invertebrate Collections Manager, Christy Bills, shares a story about an intimidating spider found here in Utah that might just melt your heart.
No archaeologist would have guessed it, but the oldest evidence of cacao use in the Southwestern U.S. was found in an Ancestral Puebloan village in Utah.
Summer in Utah’s mountains brings lots of cow-parsnip, a strong-scented member of the carrot family, but adventurers should be careful not to confuse it with its more toxic look-alikes: hogweed, poison hemlock, and water hemlock.
![[image] Top 5 Venomous Encounters in Nature](/sites/default/files/Large-eyed-pit-viper-blogheader.jpg)
![[image] The Dracula of Wasps](/sites/default/files/TarantulaHawk.jpg)
![[image] From a Utah Hike: A Carolina Wolf Spider Story](/sites/default/files/CarolinaWolfSpider-blogheader.jpg)
![[image] Top 5 Dinosaur Myths](/sites/default/files/Godzilla-blogheader.jpg)
![[image] Utah, home to the oldest chocolate in the U.S.](/sites/default/files/woman_holding_cacao_pod-web.jpg)
![[image] Utah’s Ancient Cacao: A Surprising Find](/sites/default/files/abajo r-o bowl - blogheader.jpg)
![[image] Chocolate: Its Origins](/sites/default/files/cacao-offering-blogheader.jpg)
![[image] Know Your Lacy White Flowers](/sites/default/files/cowparsnip-blogheader.jpg)
![[image] 7 Things Your Child Might Become, Thanks to NHMU Summer Camps](/sites/default/files/Summercamp-blogheader2.jpg)
![[image] Fierce Facts about Fireflies](/sites/default/files/firefly-facts-blogheader.jpg)