Not an idle question. Some friends of mine recently moved into a new house. They don’t let their cats outside, but do let them into the garage do their business. A few days ago, one of the cats ran in from the garage looking panicked, quickly fell over, and died. It’s an area where black widows in the garage would be pretty common, but more venomous spiders, like the brown recluse for example, would be extremely unlikely. Scorpions are a distinct possibility, but I’m thinking this sounds more like a rattlesnake.
There’s vets and spider-lovers around here so I think they can give you a better answer. But the cat’s behavior doesn’t sound like what you’d expect from a widow bite. I say this because it sounds like the cat was alarmed, and also because I’m not thinking the venom would act that quickly–usually with a black widow bite there’s a lot of discomfort involved. What you’ve described sounds more like a snake bite (painful, frightening, fast, vanom made for killing mammals) if we’re assuming ‘something got kitty’ and that she didn’t die from something internal.
The vet can do a necroscopy to determine cause of death. Your friends would have to pay money for it, but might be worthwhile if they suspect a venomous animal in their garage.
Have they thoroughly policed the garage for toxic substances? Some chemicals can kill startlingly quickly.
OP, you’re listed as being in San Diego. May we assume your friends are in the vicinity? (Answers will change if the ex-kitty’s owners live in, say, Australia. Or New England.)
Assuming it was in San Diego, I agree that rattlesnake seems far more likely.
California Poison Control System - San Diego Division
Good place to start getting information, at least.
If your friends call the Cal Poison people, I suggest that they ASK if there is a veterinary toxicologist on staff (this was not clear from their website). Cats are not furry people. Sadly, I’ve heard a number of stories about human toxicologists who didn’t know what they didn’t know about veterinary toxicology, sometimes leading to dangerous mistakes.
I’m sorry to hear about your friends’ cat.
i hear about some spider bites with death score to human, cat is death in minutes if can kill man.
Death from a Black Widow bite would be typically be a much more drawn out affair than just keeling over and dying even for a cat. A scorpion sting would be [akin to bee sting](Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show) so I doubt that’s the culprit.
I’ve vote for a snake, but usually the site of a rattlers bite is tremendously swollen and fairly obvious. Maybe the cat looked panicked because it was in physical distress from another (natural) cause.
(bolding mine)
IANAD (or a Veterinarian)
To the best of my knowledge, this is true if the subject survives the bite long enough.
If death occurs quickly, swelling (if any, at all) is minimal, and the actual site of envenomation can easily be missed due to fur/hair concealing the wound.