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

I would argue that if you're close enough to the point where you can accurately count the number of eyes, you've already made a terrible mistake.

I feel this page would be much more amusing if it just continued forever and got more and more absurd identifications of &quot;possible brown recluse&quot; as you went down.<p>Things like <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oldbug.com&#x2F;brownbeauty.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oldbug.com&#x2F;brownbeauty.htm</a> and so forth.

@recluseornot on Twitter was run by some very good entomologists I know. They had to stop because of the workload. What someone needs to do, perhaps, is to use that corpa of images and responses as the start of the all-powerful AI.<p>Better yet, have a startup fund a real-life entomologist for 2-5 years, remote is possible, to <i>keep</i> identifying pictures in this type of forum, in return for that relatively paltry sum (maybe 70k&#x2F;year + 10k for scope + camera setup for more detailed work, + 15k for operating a year), you&#x27;d get a far richer dateset to &quot;commercialize&quot;.<p>Yes, I know spiders are not insects, I&#x27;m an entomologist too.

First, count its eyes and then look for eyes arranged in an V pattern<p>If you see a couple of eyes much bigger than the rest, is not a recluse.<p>If you count 8 eyes, is not a recluse<p>If the eyes are arranged in a rectangle or trapezoid, not recluse.<p>If you see single eyes isolated, not recluse<p>This list will discard the 95% of the suspicious spiders that you can find at home<p>Otherwise: can be, but not necessarily, a brown recluse.

Ugh, the article was so hard to understand, I actually had to read certain parts twice to get if he was talking what is a recluse or what isn&#x27;t in that line or paragraph. I think it is a bad idea to interleave those definitions, and same with pictures. I have no objections about hard to understand objects, but this was probably intended as a quick emergency guide for a commoners.

Just recently, there was a super interesting reddit thread about a brown recluse bite and the healing process.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;interestingasfuck&#x2F;comments&#x2F;wqawcb&#x2F;my_fantastic_journey_from_start_516_until_almost&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;interestingasfuck&#x2F;comments&#x2F;wqawcb&#x2F;m...</a>

Thank you, but no. I hate it.<p>I had my fill of exposure to Brown Recluse spiders in high school biology, including one big fucker that was stupid enough to run up my arm. I trapped it and put it in alcohol for making the mistake of making contact with my body.<p>I was a teachers aide for that biology teacher at the time, and he was disappointed that I had managed to kill one of the biggest specimens he had ever seen. But I didn&#x27;t get in any actual trouble or anything.<p>These days, anything that vaguely looks like a brown recluse will just die a very fast and over complete death. There may be squish left to mop up after I&#x27;m done, but not much more.

This is easy, and doesn&#x27;t even require a website. Rule of thumb: All spiders are Black Widows, and those that aren&#x27;t are Brown Recluses. All spiders are deadly poisonous, and those that aren&#x27;t are deadly poisonous. All spiders hunt and eat humans.<p>Obviously, this is a joke, but I have an irrational fear of spiders that I inherited from my father, and have passed to my now-adult son. We live in southwestern Virginia (Virginia Tech), and have a nice variety of creepy spiders that all manage to look deadly. My fear has gotten worse as I have gotten older. This is actually useful to me. Thank you to the OP.

&gt; You won&#x27;t be able to tell what it is (and please don&#x27;t send them to me for identification because due to shift in the California economy, I no longer provide these services) but you will at least know that it is not a recluse spider.<p>I wonder what the author is referring to.

When advice regarding a spider is along the lines of &quot;don&#x27;t look at it from above, get down and gaze into its eyes,&quot; that&#x27;s when I draw the line.<p>It can&#x27;t bite me if it&#x27;s flat.

I mostly find myself thankful that this site does not support embedded images. Makes it one of the only places an arachnophobe like myself can calmly click into a discussion thread with a title like this!

I got a few spider bites in the Peruvian Amazon. The spiders look exactly like those recluse spiders on the photos. They are really fast and they can jump. The photos I found online of what recluse spider bites look like matched my wound that refused to heal for 2 months until I started taking antibiotics... Now they look like a small bruise.

When I occasionally want to identify a spider I see I find it a bit sad that you can find lots of pages with information on spiders that people are afraid of but not much information on random spiders unless they&#x27;re something particularly interesting like orb weavers<p>I&#x27;m not sure if there are just too many species or if just nobody cares?

This would make an actually interesting (and potentially useful) captcha system. &quot;Pick the spiders without spines&quot;...&quot;pick the spiders that are only one color&quot;...etc. Call it either &quot;creepy captcha&quot; or &quot;creature captcha&quot;.

NOT RECLUSE<p><pre><code> Numerous Occurrence Timing Red center Elevated Chronic Large Ulcerates too early Swelling Exudative </code></pre> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spiders.ucr.edu&#x2F;what-not-recluse-bite" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spiders.ucr.edu&#x2F;what-not-recluse-bite</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;entomology.ucr.edu&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;02&#x2F;15&#x2F;no-thats-not-brown-recluse-spider-bite" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;entomology.ucr.edu&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;02&#x2F;15&#x2F;no-thats-not-brow...</a>

In my second-hand experience, 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.<p>I don&#x27;t know what &quot;extremely rare&quot; means (especially in Arkansas, where a brown recluse seems about as likely as any other spider), but I had a girlfriend and a best friend get bites the same year that got very ugly, especially since the girlfriend&#x27;s bite was on her neck and was misdiagnosed the first time she saw someone for it.

Here&#x27;s the thing: If I am in a country that harbours these abominations of nature and I see a suspicious spider near or even inside my home, I&#x27;ll kill it. I&#x27;ll drop the whole weight of the &quot;sapiens&quot; part of my species on that toxic creature. No quarter given or expected.<p>There&#x27;s something very deep inside me that tells me that beings with way more than the usual amount of legs are to be feared and I trust that part of me.

I live a only a few miles from from downtown Austin in a home that is about 10 years old. We frequently find brown recluse spiders indoors and in the garage; less frequently I find black widow spiders. They have left us alone so far even though I do kill them once I identify them (if they are too young and small to assess accurately I don&#x27;t give them the benefit of doubt).<p>Spiders aren&#x27;t the only wildlife to be concerned about here in Central Texas, scorpions and giant centipedes also wander around the house. Fortunately, the poisonous snakes of central Texas (rattlesnake, copperhead, coral snake, and water moccasin) haven&#x27;t ventured inside. Of course we have killer bees and fire ants in the area, but you can usually outrun them--if you&#x27;re in good shape. The only poisonous creature found in the US that isn&#x27;t found here is the Gila monster. The good news is we don&#x27;t have Grisly bears, maybe the mountain lions scare them away.

Saw the headline and thought &quot;oh here we go with the myths.&quot; I&#x27;m a spider and rattlesnake wrangler in my spare time and almost everything I know about spiders comes from one of the premier arachnologists in the US: Rick Vetter.<p>And this is his site! So no myths here; just good science.

As I know that there are some NASA people here, I was wondering... just curiosity<p>Do the NASA staff receive training in spiders and other alien-like creatures from this planet? A course about basic arachnid communication at least?<p>In the (unlikely) case that they don&#x27;t, I think that they definitely should study arachnids and molluscs at least.<p>Is unlikely that alien life will be just common english-talking people, with blue make-up and some ear prostetics. If we can&#x27;t tolerate spiders at the earth that only bite in self defense, how we would communicate effectively with aliens? (And being illustrated about the whole kind of traps created by earth predators is always handy)

Just about everyone in California knows to avoid Brown recluse spiders, and shake your sillies before print them on, such that university of California&#x2F;Riverside put out this PSA. As relevant as identification, they forgot to mention that you will never encounter a brown recluse spider in California.[1]<p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insight-pest.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;are-there-brown-recluse-in-california&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insight-pest.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;are-there-brown-recluse-in-cal...</a>

Just last year, my uncle received a recluse bite which occurred in Sacramento, California leaving a necrosis wound so the given map is evidently a general map.<p>To be fair, he did move from the Mojave Desert region so it could have been boxes and moved. Much like the mass Air Force personnel moving to Sacramento (Mather AFB) from North Carolina air base potentially taking North Carolina Wolf spiders during its UC Davis identified 1964-65 introduction period.

Seems like we need an ML model for this.<p>isthisabrownrecluse.com or something

I live in a place with brown recluses and have been trying to find one for more than three years with no luck. It’s really living up to its name.

Why do they think it&#x27;s a good idea to cover half the screen with &quot;spider research&quot;?<p>Can&#x27;t even read this too distracting.

If you suspect it&#x27;s a brown recluse, use a flamethrower.<p>If you suspect it&#x27;s not a brown recluse, use a flamethrower.

I&#x27;ve unfortunately been bitten twice in the past 4 months. Its made me very aware of their presence in my home. I&#x27;ve developed a weird fascination with them since. They&#x27;re cute in their own way but that doesn&#x27;t stop me from shuttling them out the door.

I had a brown recluse crawl across my computer keyboard. I was pretty shocked, so I got some photos. I told the exterminator and he said nah you didn’t no way. So I showed him the picture and he said well that’s a recluse.<p>The main concern of course is that a child will try to pick it up.

Wasn&#x27;t it <i>Animal Farm</i> where the animals say &quot;Four legs good; eight legs bad&quot; ?

As someone who had to identify Chilean recluses (<i>Loxosceles laeta</i>, arguably the most dangerous one), I think that lack of spines and walking speed (they can be quite fast) are the most frequent criteria I’ve used to check them.

(this is about black widows, not brown recluses, so it may or may not be relevant)<p>I had someone tell me if I went out at night with a UV pen and shined it underneath stuff, esp. patio furniture, I&#x27;d find lots of black widows.<p>Tried it; didn&#x27;t see any.

If you <i>see</i> it, it&#x27;s almost certainly not a recluse. They weren&#x27;t given that name for nothing, after all.

I find it interesting how the recluse map is pointing to a wayback archive rather than a direct host through their site.

The black widows will eat you alive before you find a brown recluse in riverside

Check map. I’m good. Instantly close article. No thanks on anything spiders.

Brown recluse!