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Myth of the Brown Recluse

spiders.ucr.edu

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Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#131

Post by moate »

comesee wrote: post #99
moate wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biologists have complained for years about fear-mongering by the media when it comes to certain scary animals (sharks probably being the #1 victims). It's not that the media is lying per se, it's just an overstatement of the danger presented by these types of animals. It's not a conspiracy to lie, just sensationalist journalism (a problem, but much less sinister)

He's promoting distrust in the media and this is dangerous for our democracy.

I'm not sure if you're just being sarcastic at this point or not...Let's just assume you're not because hey, good faith and all that.

There is a wide gap between "the media sometimes sensationalizes things that are traumatic and scary which causes people to believe that these events/things are more common than they actually are" and "this person is systematically sewing distrust in the media as a means of properly moving information from one location to the other, thus destroying the media's credibility and undermining our free society".

The whole "fake news" problem, wherein people just attempt to discredit factual information they disagree with by claiming it isn't real or important, is not the same as a person pointing out a well documented (and discussed) trend in certain segments of the media to go for "click-bait".

You're not arguing that click-bait style writing isn't real, right? You're not going to try and tell me that a research associate somehow knows less about his field of study than some random member of the media, are you?

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#132

Post by moate »

comesee wrote: post #98
Brockenstein wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With something like this, brown recluses in California. Where a lot of people believe it, because it's a "known fact". Well local media is populated by a lot of those people. They're probably not knowingly lying or creating a conspiracy. Just talking about something "everybody knows", and it just happens that that fact is mostly wrong. There isn't a problem with saying the media is wrong, misinformed, or lying, if yo…

Directly from the article: > I repeatedly have seen the media in their "quest to seek out the truth" write completely speculative stories about the existence of the brown recluse in California. Unfortunately, the truth is not nearly good enough to sell news and therefore, a speculative story is fabricated based upon faulty assumptions. He's strongly and cynically implying that the media doesn't sincerely seek the tru…

He then goes about spending his entire article (and in fact, a whole ass book!: http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=8014010049221...) talking about the spider in question and why it's misunderstood by laymen. The man is an expert in his field lobbing a (valid) criticism about media representation of one specific matter.

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#133

Post by BenjiWiebe »

Yes I'm here in Kansas laughing. I've had a brown recluse walk down my arm out of my sleeve, and didn't get bit. Just brushed it off and stepped on it. Also my cousin has had several confirmed brown recluse bites. Yes they were painful disgusting etc etc, but didn't kill her or cause any life changing damage...

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#134

Post by lotyrin »

larkeith wrote: post #116
njarboe wrote: post #103

The Myth of the Myth of the Brown Recluse I have lived in California for 25 years and have never heard about the Brown Recluse living here. I guess I don't watch enough local news, but I think that Rick Vetter, being in the Department of Entomology at UC Riverside, is going to have an extreme over exposure to people who think the Brown Recluse is a problem. The random people who send him spiders are worried about the…

Anecdata: I live in Oregon, and have always been mildly concerned about visiting California because I thought brown recluses lived there. I genuinely have no idea where I got the idea.

Further: I used to live in Oregon and was given the impression that I might encounter them there (in Oregon).

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#135

Post by the_af »

S_A_P wrote: post #95

I live in Texas. There are brown recluse here. I don't really fear a spider since it doesn't seem like they are all that aggressive to people. The worst part of spiders to me are when I walk through a web. Ive had a bad spider bite that caused great swelling and some necrosis, but I don't know it was a brown recluse. I personally have a nasty fear of wasps, which I cannot rationally explain other than I think they lo…

Same here: I fear wasps more than spiders. Some spiders look sort of cute, and even the ugly ones don't seem aggressive, but all types of wasps look aggressive to me, all the time.

It doesn't help that I've been stung by wasps more than once, but never by spiders.

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#136

Post by sarah2079 »

cgriswald wrote: post #106
mikeyouse wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although I have my doubts I take it your never been to Mt Diablo during mating season then? The place is filthy with tarantulas. Just a random YouTube but at certain times of the year, the road is covered in them: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g4w5UbvaYy0

Cool vid. Nope, never been there, but I want to go now. I'm in the hills of the peninsula. I've done a ton of hiking near my house but I've never found one.

I've seen one at both rancho san antonio & the dish.

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#137

Post by core-questions »

S_A_P wrote: post #95

I live in Texas. There are brown recluse here. I don't really fear a spider since it doesn't seem like they are all that aggressive to people. The worst part of spiders to me are when I walk through a web. Ive had a bad spider bite that caused great swelling and some necrosis, but I don't know it was a brown recluse. I personally have a nasty fear of wasps, which I cannot rationally explain other than I think they lo…

> I personally have a nasty fear of wasps, which I cannot rationally explain other than I think they look mean and evil and can fly at you.

It's a hindbrain thing, I have it too. The rational side of my brain doesn't need the onlookers to explain to me the technique of staying calm and not flailing about; the hindbrain is incapable of listening and wants me to just fuckin' run as fast as is humanly possible.

It can be embarrassing at times...

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#138

Post by relaytheurgency »

Chazprime wrote: post #19

On the flip side, increased awareness of the little buggers is probably better for bite victims. The mother of one of my childhood friends in chilly New Hampshire went to the hospital with a rash a few years back and several visits emerged missing a chunk of her back about the size of a tennis ball. Having never seen one, the doctors never even considered she might have a dangerous spider bite.

My father in law developed a nasty necrotic wound that everyone assumed was a brown recluse bite. But it kept getting worse and worse no matter what treatment options they tried. Turned out he had leishmaniasis. Of course no one considered that because they were blinded by the common explanation.

Now, you could argue that maybe had the doctors known more about leishmaniasis he would have received a diagnosis faster. However, I imagine the situation played out about as well as one should hope. Certainly in Bolivia (where he picked up the disease) they should be more aware of the common causes of things than the uncommon. They should not be inspecting for brown recluse bites when there are rarely any just as we should not look at every necrotizing wound and investigate it as an uncommon case of leishmaniasis.

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#139

Post by pvaldes »

jorvi wrote: post #36
kibwen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn't mention how long you have after the bite until the antivenom must be administered, so it's feasible that people living in remote or undeveloped areas would still want to be wary. I also imagine that children are more susceptible to the venom, so it still makes sense to teach them about the danger.

Most people don’t need to be. What the article fails to mention is that Black Widow bites are only life-threatening to the ‘feeble’ (children, elderly, sick, etc). Otherwise you’re in for a very bad time, but the chance of dying is insignificant. “In the United States each year, about 2,200 people report being bitten .. each year 12 bites are considered serious but no deaths have been reported in 100 years .. .. Cont…

Both are very different creatures. Lets say broadly that Recluse has an acid attak, will melt tissue. Recluse will not kill you normally but can leave a scar.

Black widows instead have an attack of, lets say, electric type. Will 'electrocute' you. Black widow will not kill you normally. But if you collaborate with the black widow work, you will kill yourself instead

Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse

#140

Post by pvaldes »

papyrus23 wrote: post #56
amdavidson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the place with no dangerous wildlife?

The UK?

UK is not entirely safe to people with arachnophobia, as a lad in Sommerset could explain you when in 2005 had a brief but painful encounter with the so called most venomous species of Spider in the world, inside his kitchen.

Ladies, Gentlemen, specially for you, vegan organic food lovers: the wonderful, strong and always elegant Brazilian Wandering Spider.

Peekaboo!: https://www.visitemosmisiones.com/noticias/wp-content/upload...

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