Animals that changed medicine

Species whose biology underwrites drugs, diagnostics or the research that produced them.

• Atlantic Horseshoe CrabLimulus polyphemus
• Hirudo medicinalis
• Caenorhabditis elegans
• Drosophila melanogaster
• Conus geographus
• Gila MonsterHeloderma suspectum
• Bothrops jararaca
• House MouseMus musculus

About this list

Two of these are diagnostic rather than therapeutic. Horseshoe crab blood detects bacterial endotoxin at a sensitivity nothing else matched for decades, and every injectable drug has been tested with it.

Three are venom-derived. ACE inhibitors for hypertension came out of the venom of the Brazilian pit viper; the diabetes drug exenatide from a peptide in Gila monster saliva; the analgesic ziconotide from a cone snail. A fourth pair — the fruit fly and the nematode — changed medicine by being convenient, and between them account for a remarkable share of what is known about how a body is built.