I briefly lived in Chile, where the Chilean recluse is considerably more venomous than the brown recluse. I met one man who was bitten by one on a neck vein. The damage to his heart now requires life long medication. Because of that, I'm going to continue to be afraid of brown recluses, despite living several degrees north of their known range in the US.
Myth of the Brown Recluse
91–100 of 158 posts
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#92Media hysteria is a very real danger to science and logic in general. Their concern is more about driving traffic to sites or getting viewers to increase ad revenue, not necessarily telling you the truth if it isn't particularly sexy. I see parallels with the onslaught against a lot of initiatives in the crop science sector. Playing to the emotions of people rather than the facts is a very dangerous spiral for us to fall into.
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#93my Uncle got bit by a spider. Don't know if it was a recluse.
He was getting dressed in the morning. Put his work pants on that were draped over a chair, felt a sting on his thigh and a spider fell on the floor when he ripped off the pant and shook them out. He had a hands width depression that was about an inch deep. This was after it was healed and completely scarred over. I don't know how big it was while healing.
This was in Arkansas though so smack dab in the middle of the territory on that map[0]
Helping some friends on a farm in West Virginia, their greenhouses would fill up with black widows in the early spring before they got around to cleaning them out for the first planting. 1000s of them in each greenhouse. Quickly learned that they are entirely harmless.
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#94I've lived in Portland OR, Mid MO, and the Kansas City area. In mid-Missouri, the brown recluse is the standard house spider. Pretty much every spider in my house there was a brown recluse. I had a weird bruise-y/necrotic bite on my hip that I assumed came from one that got in bed with me. It healed up fine without any medical intervention even though it lingered for awhile. I suspect a lot of people get bitten over…
I live in the Santa Barbara area, and bugs are way less, probably because of how dry it is compared to the midwest. In mid MO I've seen ticks large enough to keep as pets!
However, we do have a lot of black widows. They aren't super aggressive towards humans, but they tend to go in places that you only sometimes visit (the back of that one drawer in your toolchest you don't use very often, woodpiles, Christmas decorations in attic or garage, etc.) I put on gloves before going to any of those locations because I'm told even though it's non-fatal to healthy adults, it's supposed to be excruciatingly painful.
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#95I 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 look mean and evil and can fly at you. Here in Houston, we have 2 types that are especially aggressive. The worst is the yellow jacket, since they are great at building a hive in the ground and their small size means you don't see them until its too late in many cases. The other is the Mahogany/Red paper wasp. These guys are usually ok most of the year, but as summer turns to fall, they get a bit aggressive and start wanting your food. They are also relatively large and make pretty big nests.
Even through they are great mosquito killers, I won't let a nest live near a place I frequent. We also have cicada killer wasps, which are very large and very inquisitive. That combination usually has me spazing out at least once a year as they dive bomb me...
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that I don't believe you (the word 'necrotizing' sends shivers up my spine) but since you didn't catch the spider itself, are there any other species of spider that may have been the biter?
My guess would be a black widow.
In Virginia? I never saw one in 17 years. Now that was all in Piedmont and Tidewater; perhaps the valley has them, but I doubt it.
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#97Am I the only one who read the headline and thought this was about the personality scores given out to South-Asians as part of the Harvard admissions case?
Actually that seems likely.
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#98[flagged]
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 truth and runs stories based on whether the story sells. Promoting distruse in the media like this is dangerous for our society, we've see what happens when Trump does it.
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#99[flagged]
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.
Re: Myth of the Brown Recluse
#100What happens when you mix a brown recluse and a black widow? You get a brown widow. (Not really). These http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/URBAN/SPIDERS/brown_wido... things are all over SW Florida insofar as I can tell from the egg sacs littering my lanai. There's more to say about them - but not now, I feel bad about passive/aggressive threadjacking. I'll just leave that link here for my fellow Floriduhuns.
You’re seeing those spikey looking egg sacs? I’d address that somehow. That’s terrifying.
Yup. About 3/4" in diameter. They look like friendly little puffballs with soft spikes.