Brown Recluse Infestation

[cash2006]

Thanks again all.

FIDDLEBACK- Delighted to hear from you, love the picks, and agree with all you wrote. Unfortunately I have a GF that is terrified of all bugs, and I had just persuaded her that spiders are "our friends" as they eat all the evil bugs.

Enjoying a little drama, I could not resist in reporting my first spider kill in a decade. She was furious over my "spider loving propaganda" and will no doubt sick her rottweiler ever more aggressively on bugs upon their next visit.

It is really amazing how many I know have been bitten by these things, had an exciting scare, and lived to tell about it.

Tyr- thanks for the Wolf idea that's a great idea- I'll try to put my Godson (or GF- talk about terrrific drama) to work.

paul

 

[tyr_shadowblade]

I added to my strip by place a live cricket in the middle of each one.

Uh . . . tarantulas love crickets . . . but a Brown Recluse probably won't try to hunt something bigger than itself. Besides, spiders' eyesight isn't very good for distance -- it picks up movement at close range.

It is considered good luck to have a cricket in your house -- but that'd probably turn around if you're gluing 'em to the floor.

 

[tyr_shadowblade]

Tyr- thanks for the Wolf idea that's a great idea- I'll try to put my Godson (or GF- talk about terrrific drama) to work.

Be advised that there's a proper way to pick 'em up. It's best to use a piece of cardboard to get them in the jar, but if you're using bare hands pinch it between your thumb and forefinger. If he just grabs it and walks around with it in his hand, pissed off wolf spider WILL bite -- although the bite is non-toxic. Oh, and in the event that a leg breaks off, it'll grow back after the next moult.

 

[cash2006]

Thanks for the handling tip Tyr.

One terrific thing about Recluses is that they are not apt to cause priapism, as their more aggressive Brazillian cousins are...

 

[kr1]

If everyone reacted like those pictures, you would hear A LOT more about the danger of brown recluse spiders. Do a little searching and you'll find out that different people have different sensitivities to any venomous bite. Some people have little or no ill affects. This is true for any venomous bite - granted the differences in sensitivity for some real dangerous bites (like some of those spiders down under) between people may mean surviving or not surviving.


Read the "bite symptoms" section:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2061.html

If I read your reference correctly it says exactly what I was saying. It is a necrotic poison and with all poisons the dose is what counts. Usually the amount injected is small so the affect is small. People that get a bad bite (large amount of venom) suffer these types of injuries.

This spider, like a rattlesnake is probably aware (on an instinctive level) enough to not want to shoot its whole load into an arm or leg. Something it knows is not prey. The poison takes time to make an without poison it cannot eat or protect itself. So it probably uses it sparingly such as on a human arm or leg so the affect is typically small. Just enough to makes it presence and displeasure known. If it is being crushed between a persons pants and leg or otherwise cannot escape I would expect it would escalate its attack and inject more poison, possibly uncontrolled, causing considerably more damage. That is probably not the usual way it would defend itself.

KR

 

[Saunterer]

If everyone reacted like those pictures, you would hear A LOT more about the danger of brown recluse spiders. Do a little searching and you'll find out that different people have different sensitivities to any venomous bite. Some people have little or no ill affects. This is true for any venomous bite - granted the differences in sensitivity for some real dangerous bites (like some of those spiders down under) between people may mean surviving or not surviving.


Read the "bite symptoms" section:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2061.html

Exactly true. My daughter was bitten when she was two years old and it barely was worse than a mosquito bite on her. The doc put her on some antibiotics with no issues.

I was bitten and had a mosquito bite sized sore that grew over a two day period into this.

After assuring my wife that it was not a BR bite, she sent me to the doc and he immediately put me on some anti-leprosy and antibiotic drugs. The next day it looked like this:

And four days later:

It finally went away after about two weeks and left a cool looking quarter sized scar on my leg.

A friend of mine was bitten on her shoulder blade, and it required surgery that removed a ice-cream sized scoop of flesh from her back. That was nasty as some of the pictures you see on the 'net.

The midwest is full of BR spiders. I find them quite often.

--Chris

 

[JustinM]

Hey Justin....

Yes,, with the produce that is imported from whereever,, it is possible they are here.. I just haven't seen one...

I wonder if they can survive the winters ??

We aren't suppose to have Possums either but we've got Tons of them here now...

ttyle

Eric
O/ST

We get fairly bad winters in PA at times. I didn't think we would have any bad creepy crawlies because of that, but like I said in my last post, we still get the critters. Hell, just last month they found crocodiles in a local river (probably former pets, but still).

 

[Broos]

Saunterer,
That is a lot worse than the reaction I had, but mine last a lot longer - I'll bet that thing hurt & itched like a son of a gun.

If I read your reference correctly it says exactly what I was saying. It is a necrotic poison and with all poisons the dose is what counts. Usually the amount injected is small so the affect is small. People that get a bad bite (large amount of venom) suffer these types of injuries.

I thought the verbiage from OSU quoted below was pretty clear, and really thought it was common knowledge that not everyone reacts to venom (or poison, or anything else for that matter) the same way, but apparently not. If you would rather believe your version, that's OK by me. I just thought it was appropriate to provide the correct information on this spider.

"The physical reaction to a brown recluse spider bite depends on the amount of venom injected and an individual's sensitivity to it. Some people are unaffected by a bite,..."

 

[kr1]

Saunterer,
That is a lot worse than the reaction I had, but mine last a lot longer - I'll bet that thing hurt & itched like a son of a gun.



I thought the verbiage from OSU quoted below was pretty clear, and really thought it was common knowledge that not everyone reacts to venom (or poison, or anything else for that matter) the same way, but apparently not. If you would rather believe your version, that's OK by me. I just thought it was appropriate to provide the correct information on this spider.

"The physical reaction to a brown recluse spider bite depends on the amount of venom injected and an individual's sensitivity to it. Some people are unaffected by a bite,..."

You are correct. I did miss that when I read it.

I won't go into the long reason why I thought this was different but again, it appears this document supports what you said.

Thanks for pointing it out.
KR

 

[cash2006]

Just finished with the entomolygist.

If you aren't allergic to the venom you may not even know you've been bitten. If you are allergic to bee stings your reaction to a recluse bite will be worse as they are a similar toxin. Quanitity is also a factor (just like snake venom). The internet bite pics are real but very extreme cases.

Not nearly as exciting as I had hoped but good nature fun and education.

p

 

[Yoshi]

Thank goodness I live in the UK!! even our house spider doesn't have the same bite as yours!!!

 

[Broos]

Thanks KR1 - if I came across as a butthead, my apologies. Regardless of the severity of bite and reaction to it, this is not a critter you want in your house. Especially if you have kids. I recall a news story a couple years ago here where a baby or toddler died as a result of multiple bites (our little girl was a baby when it happened).

And unless you know how you would react (and you can't be sure unless you see them bite you, which I think rarely happens), it probably is a wise choice to assume the worst case. And I think even if you know how you reacted to one bite, there is no guarantee you will react the same if you got bit again, right? Aren't there cases where folks develop an allergic reaction to a bee sting even after having normal reactions to previous stings?

I need to remember these pics so I can identify them - size of a quarter or smaller, thin and gangly, brown, 6 eyes, no markings on the abdomen, and usually a fiddleback mark on the section behind the head).

 

[Dr. Mudd]

If I had those brown recluses, I think I'd spray the typical ant and roach contact killers into every nook and cranny they'd be likely to live in once a week for many months, just as long as I wasn't going to poison any pets and children by doing that. I have to wonder if any kind of spiders might be attracted to a bait, like the Amdro I use around the outside of our house to give fire ants and others a terminally bad belly ache. Someone should do research to see what we could feed poisonous spiders to kill them.

Something I learned when I was a kid was to never put on my boots or shoes without making sure there were no spiders or scorpions in them from the night before. The idea is to hold your shoe underneath it and across the sole with the toe up, and then bump the heel on the floor a couple of times and shake out anything that might be dislodged from the toe area. If you see something that crawls out, then use the shoe to beat the snot out of it.

 

[Saunterer]

Saunterer,
That is a lot worse than the reaction I had, but mine last a lot longer - I'll bet that thing hurt & itched like a son of a gun.

Heh. Funny thing is, the reddish rash-like areas around the bite were hot (like feverish hot) and leathery feeling. But it never itched badly.

 

[kr1]

Thanks KR1 - if I came across as a butthead, my apologies. Regardless of the severity of bite and reaction to it, this is not a critter you want in your house. Especially if you have kids. I recall a news story a couple years ago here where a baby or toddler died as a result of multiple bites (our little girl was a baby when it happened).

And unless you know how you would react (and you can't be sure unless you see them bite you, which I think rarely happens), it probably is a wise choice to assume the worst case. And I think even if you know how you reacted to one bite, there is no guarantee you will react the same if you got bit again, right? Aren't there cases where folks develop an allergic reaction to a bee sting even after having normal reactions to previous stings?

I need to remember these pics so I can identify them - size of a quarter or smaller, thin and gangly, brown, 6 eyes, no markings on the abdomen, and usually a fiddleback mark on the section behind the head).

Not at all. The problem I was having and still am not entirely sure about is that the article might actually be talking about two different things. There is a local reaction and then there is a systemic reaction. I believe but am not certain that the local reaction is primarily dependent on amount. That and I think that alone will determine how much tissue damage there is. The other is a systemic reaction such as an anaphylactic reaction which is actually an overreaction by the body as a whole and can be life threatening. I am not sure but I think that the reference as to a persons tolerance is referring to the systemic part of the reaction. I am hoping to talk to my med control doctor at some point to try to clarify this. If I get more information I'll tell everyone what I have found out.

Again, I am not certain. That is why I am going to try to get some more information.

KR

 

[kr1]

This was a repeat of the other post. I removed it.

 

[rebeltf]

Bah forget all the touchy feely natureboy stuff when it comes to venomous creatures , kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out , I say.

Do some of you actually feel guilt when killing a spider ?

B.R. spiders are starting to show up here in the Republik more and more so now any truce I had with unrecognizable spiders is off , I kill them on site.

I know a girl who got bit by one on her nose , she came pretty close to losing part of her nose that covers her nostril , do not know proper terminology.

Being a friend to nature is one thing , being a friend to something that can truly mess you up is another story in my book.

My old roomie would smash a spider and leave it's dried husk on the wall or wherever as a warning to other spiders to piss off somewhere else. I thought that was pretty funny.





Oh and Normark. Those pics made me vomit in my mouth a little... :barf:

 

[cash2006]

Caught no recluses last night but caught a "roof rat" in the attic and in the yard with a great new (to me) bait called

"HUG A NUT"

 

[task force k]

LOL. Just remember there's probably 10,000 brown recluse spiders living in your crawl space. Muwahahahahahahaha

That's it....first chance I get, I'm moving someplace without any spiders... like the moon. I spent half the night with the heebie-jeebies. I don't even know why it bothered me so much...my wife has a rose-haired tarantula named Lenny and she was bitten on the leg years ago by a brown recluse. All I know now is that if I'm ever bitten on the thumb by a brown recluse...that thumb is coming off. I'm not even waiting for it to get all foul and repugnant...I'm just going to run to the nearest bandsaw and zip...gone. I lived out in the middle of nowhere in Texas and I found a tarantula in our driveway...two weeks later we moved to Ohio. I'm getting all twitchy now...why did I ever read these posts? Man, I am FREAKING OUT.

 

[1whitefoot]

What always bothers me is when I'm camping out and just get the bedroll tucked in nice and comfortable,
just drifting off to sleep when I feel some little 8 legged critter running up my leg
Always gets me out and standing up real quick

Shake out the bedroll and then start over :grumpy: