I am proud to announce that the latest paper describing a new method for extracting fire ant venom has been published. I am afraid access is open only to academic researchers -- the .pdf can be downloaded for free HERE.
Well, basically all one has to do it to collect a fire ant nest, get the ants out, and dip them into a mixture of two solvents. Apolar solvent will hold venom alkaloids (LOTS OF IT) and water will hold venom proteins and peptides (VERY TOXIC). Now you have only to find ways of evaporating these liquids safely and store the venom.
Easy and quick, if you are not afraid of manipulating a whole horde of angry fire ants. At least workers cannot fly! I must warn you that the venom components are dangerous, and should be handled with great care. The concentrated mixture looks very much like snake venom.
Not for evil purposes!! Have fun and give me some feed back, please.
A demonstrative video can be downloaded from here. It can be viewed below:
I see Vespa labs no longer produces fire ant venom extract. Are there any other companies who produce this?
ResponderExcluirI am sorry, but I do not know. Few years ago, still Vespa Labs had a few milligrams of fire ant venom to sell, yet they said they were not producing it any more. It was however, not cheap.
ResponderExcluirAfter the publication of our described method, I think getting more fire ant venom has become quite accessible to anyone with a lab close to fire ant colonies. Possibly other companies might start selling it too, but researchers also might start collecting their own samples. Try it out!
Good luck!