Is this a Brown Recluse spider? (spiders, California)
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Looks to me like a Hobo Spider but hard to tell for sure from that picture since it's not close enough to show any patterns and details. Hobos are mainly found in the PNW, having been accidentally introduced there from Europe in the 1980's. I don't know if they've hitch-hiked their way over to Ohio yet.
My brother was renovating a house and was pulling down some old ceilings in it while wearing a loose neck T- shirt. Within minutes, he stated feeling something "stinging" his back.
So he called his helper over to get him to check out what was stinging his back. When he raised my brothers T-shirt to check it out, four baby "Fiddler" spiders fell off of his back. He went to the ER immediately to be treated.
Over the years I have read about how sometimes the Fiddler bites can be really bad, like "flesh rotting to the bone open wounds" ...bad. So I just did a Bing image search for " Brown Recluse Spider Bites"....
OMG. You best have a strong stomach if you choose to do the same. I had to close the page fast.
this guy examined hundreds, possibly thousands, of specimens sent to him from all over the country that senders thought might be brown recluses. virtually none were.
Quote:
In its native range, the brown recluse is a very common house spider. A colleague in Missouri found 5 in a child's bedroom one night, a person in Arkansas found 6 living under his box spring in his bedroom, during a cleanup at the Univ. of Arkansas, 52 were found in a science lab that was being used everyday, a colleague found 9 living under one piece of plywood in Oklahoma, a grad student and I collected 40 of them in a Missouri barn in 75 minutes, and would have collected more, but we ran out of vials to house them. One amazing story is an 8th grade teacher in Oklahoma checking up on his students avidly collecting material by some loose bricks around a flagpole on an insect collecting trip. In about 7 minutes, 8 students collected 60 brown recluses, picking them all up with their fingers and not one kid suffered a bite. An even more amazing story is that of a woman in Lenexa, Kansas who collected 2,055 brown recluse spiders in 6 months in 1850s-built home. This family of 4 has been living there 8 years now and still not one evident bite. (see Vetter and Barger 2002, Journal of Medical Entomology 39: 948-951). When you find brown recluses in an adequate environment, you do not find one, you find dozens. And yet, the people who live with these spiders rarely get bitten nor do they run around in constant fear.
this last sentence is very true. upon moving to Oklahoma i learned to identify brown recluses. they were absolutely everywhere, including in my house. i never had a bit of trouble with them.
People are bitten by a brown recluse usually because it was in their clothes, like a pair of pants, and they put them and and well, get bitten. Recluses are not aggressive, and go out of their way to avoid people really. If you live in an area with them, you should take the usual precautions with clothing and stuff to avoid getting bit.
I know someone who got bit because one was hiding in his work gloves. He left them, as always, on the front porch after yard work, one day, after many years of doing this, a recluse happen to find his way to the glove.
People are bitten by a brown recluse usually because it was in their clothes, like a pair of pants, and they put them and and well, get bitten. Recluses are not aggressive, and go out of their way to avoid people really. If you live in an area with them, you should take the usual precautions with clothing and stuff to avoid getting bit.
I know someone who got bit because one was hiding in his work gloves. He left them, as always, on the front porch after yard work, one day, after many years of doing this, a recluse happen to find his way to the glove.
The blue text is why I have an anvil sitting beside my work gloves that I always use on my gloves, before I ever put them on. (pic below)
Back when I was a facilities manager for a large commercial property, one of my duties was to assure the wood was stocked in a outbuilding for the facilities many fireplaces. One of the foremen that was responsible for stocking the outbuilding with wood, spoke to my boss about his men seeing "Fiddler" spiders in the wood shed while they were stocking wood.
My boss called me in to his office later that same day. He told me to get rid of the "fiddler" spiders that were seen in the firewood outbuilding, before someone got spider bit and lost a hand or leg.
I thought to myself Whuuut ?? Really ? Lose a whole hand or leg ?? So I did a internet search and typed in my browser "brown recluse spider bites on humans".
And a page almost just like the one in the link below, came up. What I saw on the page of supposed "Fiddler" spider bite damage on humans, almost made me puke. I thought, " OMG, its no wonder people are being terrified to death about "fiddler" bites if they get their info from the internet "images" being posted. ". ...
WARNING ! DO NOT OPEN THIS LINK BELOW IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH !!!!
I got bit by one about 20 years ago.Nothing you can do to heal it antibiotics or paying for treatment is a waste.In the middle of my lower back.Rotted out my flesh for about 3 mos before it began to heal.Had to drive to work with a pillow behind my shoulders cause if my back touched the seat the pain was so bad I could not stand it.Have a softball size scare to this day.
this guy examined hundreds, possibly thousands, of specimens sent to him from all over the country that senders thought might be brown recluses. virtually none were.
this last sentence is very true. upon moving to Oklahoma i learned to identify brown recluses. they were absolutely everywhere, including in my house. i never had a bit of trouble with them.
Rick Vetter is a fountain of information on bees, wasps, and spiders, and he's made it his mission to end the misconception that brown recluse spiders are responsible for hundreds of bites in California and other Western states. Although a recluse spider was responsible for the panic in San Gabriel Valley in 1968, and again in downtown Los Angeles in 1991, the villain was actually L. laeta, a larger spider native to Brazil and Chile.
I attended a Dr. Vetter seminar in the nineties, where he expressed disappointment in the hundreds of misdiagnoses by the medical community. He challenged doctors to send him these brown recluses that wounded their patients and, at that point in time, the docs were batting 0/300.
His point was that much time and money was spent in attempting to solve a problem that didn't exist, and patients were not getting the proper treatment. Since only six brown recluses had been found in California in 40 years, it was obvious that there were other reasons for patient symptoms.
While I certainly understand the OP's concern, and have even visualized some very humorous "mad" violin spiders, I don't think that he has much to worry about. Perhaps a thorough vacuuming would put his mind at ease. (And don't forget the curtains, closets, and under the bed.)
We aren't supposed to have fiddlebacks here in NV but we do in certain areas. As a plumber guy here I've been bit stung and stabbed by most things we have here that will do so. 5 times bit by black widows, countless scorpion stings and vinegaroon bites, ants, etc. But I've never been sake bit or tangled with a fiddlebck.
From what the doctors have told me black widow bites are way worse than fiddlebacks. The venom is neurotoxic and hemotoxic and I can attest first hand widow bites flat suck. It seems fiddleback bites can indeed have a hemotoxic reaction and will cause serious cellulitus if they become infected. They are treated as serious but seldom really are. Widows are always serious and require immediate attention.
The first two times I was bit I got very sick, had trouble breathing, joints were on fire it was not pleasant. Fiddlebacks don't have a neurotoxic effect and you may not ven know you've been bit. You WILL know with a widow. It's like having a cigarette put out on you.
Our scorpions here in N NV are not deadly. Even the big ones. They smart when they get you but unless your allergic to bites and stings it's no biggy other than discomfort. If you get it on the neck you might get woozy but otherwise you don't have to rush to the ER. People who are allergic to bees and such need to carry an epipen.
Vinegaroons hurt but are not deadly either. Never been bit to my knowledge by a fiddle back nor do I know anyone personally who has but there have been a couple cases where people were bit and had the bad reaction. If that does happen it's bad news.
I do my best to avoid spider situations and if a place is wall to wall webs that I have to crawl under unless it is a serious emergency it waits for 24 hours while I set off fumigators. Bombs will take care of spiders but sorpions will still be quite alive. Nothing but the sole of your boot seems to kill them.
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