![]() ![]() (Image credit: Image courtesy of the CDC Public Health Image Library) The brown recluse spider is primarily nocturnal. Male brown recluse spiders may also cross humans' paths when they search for female mates. ![]() As dawn nears, brown recluses find dark, sheltered hiding places in nature, they may find refuge in rock cracks and crevices, but if they're near humans, these spiders may camp out in places such as shoes or around human-altered environments, including trash cans, rubber tires or tarps, a quirk that can put them in close contact with people. They typically eat insects, such as silverfish and crickets, according to Oklahoma State University. These primarily nocturnal spiders build webs that serve as shelters as well as trigger systems, alerting them when prey is passing nearby so they can actively hunt it down, according to the Integrated Pest Management Program. "Most spiders go out of their way to avoid humans, which makes sense, considering we are thousands of times larger than they are and don't have a great record of behaving politely toward them." ![]() ![]() The brown recluse gets its name from its color and its "shy nature," Bills said. Body isn't more than 3/8-inch (1 cm) in lengthĪccording to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), the taxonomy of brown recluse spiders is:.Uniformly colored legs (no patterns, such as stripes or spots).Uniformly colored abdomen with fine hairs.In short, brown recluses have all five of these features, according to the Integrated Pest Management Program: The brown recluse's body (not including its legs) is typically between 0.25 and 0.5 inches (0.6 and 1.2 centimeters) long, according to Oklahoma State University. According to the Integrated Pest Management Program at The University of California, Berkeley, the genus name Loxosceles means "slanted legs," and refers to the fact that recluse spiders hold their legs in a slanting position when at rest.īrown recluse spider bodies (not including their legs) are no more than 0.375 inches (1 centimeter) in length. Their long, thin legs are also covered in fine hairs, not spines like some non-recluse spiders, Bills said. Recluses, however, have six equal-size eyes arranged in three pairs, called dyads, in a semicircle around the front of the cephalothorax.Īnother distinguishing characteristic of the brown recluse spider is its uniformly colored abdomen (though the shade of brown varies from spider to spider) covered in fine hairs, which give it a velvety appearance. Other types of spiders have eight eyes arranged in rows of four. "They have six eyes, instead of eight like most spiders," entomologist Christy Bills, the entomology collections manager at the Natural History Museum of Utah, told Live Science. The recluse's eyes are one of its most distinctive physical characteristics. "It is POSSIBLE but incredibly unlikely." If you do not live in those areas, "it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that you have a recluse spider," according to Vetter. Where do brown recluse spiders live?īrown recluse spiders ( Loxosceles reclusa) are native to a region comprising Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama and parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, according to Vetter. After seeking emergency help, people with less severe bites will usually see their wounds heal quickly after they clean it and apply the RICE method - rest, ice, compression and elevation - to the affected area, he said. But about 90% of brown recluse bites are not medically significant, and they "heal very nicely, often without medical intervention and treatment," Rick Vetter, a retired research associate of entomology at the University of California, Riverside, wrote on the university's entomology department's website. People bitten by brown recluse spiders should ice the wound and seek emergency medical treatment, as brown recluse bites can cause necrotic (rotting) skin lesions and lead to serious reactions or even death in some people, especially children, according to MedlinePlus, a service of the National Library of Medicine. ![]()
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