How to identify and misidentify a brown recluse spider (2005)

I checked out the rest of the site, too, they look dead serious.

And they still have an @earthlink.net email address!

"If the spider has brown fur but weighs about sixty pounds, has a wagging tail and is licking you with its tongue, you might actually have discovered a labradoodle..."

https://old.reddit.com/r/spiders/search?q=recluse&restrict_s...

and an ID chart: https://i.redd.it/avet69mnjga31.jpg

And slightly off topic, but I love the "/r/geology rock identification guide": https://i.imgur.com/Asnut.png

[0] https://twitter.com/RecluseOrNot/status/1560235560324710402

This already exists and is pretty good at what it does. It's called iNaturalist. It attempts to identify all living things and in my experience gets about 80% there. Experts will also occasionally come along and more accurately ID things.

On top of this, the submitted data is used for scientific research which is amazing!

Step two is to run away if it's still not disqualified because even with the helpful photos I couldn't figure out where its eyes are and I'm not getting that close to an actual spider, ridiculous

On the other hand, my house also seems to be home to a thriving Scutigera population. They eat spiders, right?

Seeing that makes me want to go check her other shoes lol.

You've likely lost several children to them.

I mostly leave them alone now (though often they become cat toys).

I was hiking with friends one day, then my friend pointed out there was a spider on my shoulder. I let it crawl on my finger, and then it dawned on me that I wasn't afraid of it at all. The feeling of no longer being afraid of something that I previously couldn't even be in the same room with was so thrilling I started seeking out spiders to handle. I've since learned a lot more about spiders in general, so I know now how to handle them in a safe way. I now have a pet Western black widow spider (which I never handle without gloves, and only handle to clean her enclosure), and delight in giving the spiders in my yard some water to drink during dry spells.

I know phobias can't be rationalized away, but in the interest of giving you a reason to work on your phobia: spiders generally don't have any interest in hurting us. Even for the medically significant ones of North America, bites rarely kill -- a black widow hasn't killed anyone in a few decades out here, and antivenom is rarely used when patients seek treatment.

It's pretty difficult to induce one to bite, since its venom is mainly for its prey. When endangered, their preference is to run, which makes sense, because biting won't be enough to incapacitate most things trying to eat you fast enough to save you when you're that small.

So we need to sign some peace treaty with them, because the world would be a really dangerous place without spiders.

There are like 3000 spider species and less than 30 are dangerous for us. This is a really small percentage. the truth s that most spiders will break its fangs if would try to fight against our skin cheratin.

So maybe when we see the next spider at home we should identify it, realize that is a calm inoffensive species (99% of probabilities), give it some cm in a quiet corner and tell the children that is its personal friendly bodyguard monster (but unable to grant spiderman superpowers) and should be left alone doing the job.

Of course I would not advice to have brown recluse pets, but the spiders that eat brown recluses and will never ever quit their small corner in the window? well, is a better deal than having roundworms swimming in your lymph. Think about it.

The Seek app by iNaturalist has pretty decent AI to identify plants and animals. It can limit itself to broader IDs such as “wasp family” if it doesn’t find enough characteristics. It can also be wildly off sometimes in its specific IDs because it’s image recognition.

There are also loads of dedicated Facebook groups specifically for ID. I know that some of the plant and mushroom ones are very good, I suspect spider-focused groups are similarly enthusiastic. They can also be wildly off, with the added component of traded insults between different people who are all certain they are each correct, and the others are all idiots “who wouldn’t know a recluse from a redback even after they got bit.” This could be a pro or a con, depending on what you find entertaining.

State extensions are going to be the most reliable, and will likely have the most info on the obscure local wildlife. I don’t know how willing they are to ID from photos though; it may vary from place to place. They may want you to capture one and send it in.

"The 2019 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers recorded 790 individual exposures to brown recluse spiders, with 174 moderate outcomes, 24 major outcomes, and 0 dealths."

> the best way to identify them is a couple of days after the fact, when a circle of skin starts to turn brown and mushy

That sounds like a really bad way to identify them. I'd much prefer to identify them at a distance. (You may have been referring to understanding an existing bite, but that's different from the article.)

And that's it. There is no number three. You only need to learn to identify those two, because no other spider's bite is medically significant in the US unless you happen to be allergic (which some fraction of people are, to be fair).

Half your work is done because you probably already know what a black widow looks like; they are quite distinctive. (They also tend not to hang out in human living spaces like brown recluses do. Black widows prefer garages and barns.)

Both species are quite shy and rarely bite people. Most bites happen when the spider gets trapped between clothing and skin and it bites because it thinks it's about to be crushed. Neither species will chase you or jump on you.

There are spiders that will jump on you. They're called jumping spiders. They are harmless, quite cute, and make good pets. Unlike most spiders, jumpers have excellent eyesight and they will chase a laser beam like a cat.

or it would probably work well with notahotdog

Part of the problem is you need scopes/cameras with resolution for things under 2mm. People don't have those, nor the expertise to setup the light, etc. to take the pictures required to diagnose them. Then they need precise angles to take the shots at, etc.

Not impossible, and could certainly eliminate a whole suite of things that are not, but at the end of the day you're going to need a salaried person to make the final call if you want to commercialize this and not get sued... I suspect.

I take 'em outside and let 'em take their chances with the birds, if the cats don't get 'em first.

There are undoubtedly thousands of them under the house. Hasn't been a problem.

I have yet to identify a recluse with any confidence, although a friend of a friend lost his arm after one crawled upward from his hand to shoulder, biting repeatedly as it moved. I think delayed treatment was the ultimate cause of severity.