the subject of brown recluses is an interesting one.
first of all, Loxosceles reclusa - 'fiddlebacks,' as okies like to call them - are not commonly found in new mexico in the way that black widows are. i've lived in farmington, albuquerque, and las vegas, and never seen one there. and trust me - i looked. extensively. i even requested that people bring them to me for identification. i looked at over 60 individual specimens in las vegas, and not a single l. reclusa among them. in fact, i have yet to find a single documented case of a brown recluse being found in new mexico. prove me wrong if you can.
after spending 7 years in central oklahoma, and learning to positively identify them, i realized this: they are
everywhere in
that area.
three examples. one- my friend plops her backpack down on the lab bench that i happen to be working on. out of the corner of my eye i see movement. a spider. no biggie, right?
so i go to catch it, and - viola - a brown recluse. i kept it alive for over two years in a petri dish on a diet of nothing but fruit flies.
two- i go to check my mail at the university one morning. a spider is one the wall, right next to a secretary's desk. guess who?
three- considering i was but a slovenly graduate student at the time, it's not surprising that i was neither a particularly thorough housekeeper, nor terribly concerned about spiders. so the small house i was renting hosted a considerable number of them, in all varieties. it wasn't until i had been living amongst them for some time that i realized that a goodly number were brown recluses.
four - yeah, i know i said three earlier.. in 1998 i put on some dress pants that had been hanging in the closet for at least 2 years. i despise dressing up more than almost anything, but doing so was a prerequisite to getting a free standby flight on mesa air. while waiting for my ride in albuquerque, i noticed a pronounced itching on my right shin. i had a knot down there the size of a halved ping-pong ball, and boy did it itch. i should have taken a picture, but i figured i was in for much worse.
to this day i can't
prove it was a brown recluse, but i figure the chances are at least fair that it was. in any event, both the itching and swelling subsided in 24 hours, with no harm done.
now, i do realize that some people do have severe reactions, and i don't really blame people for killing them on sight. i worked with a woman who had to deal with some very painful tissue debridement on her forearm due to a fiddleback bite. the problem is that people rarely know how to identify them, and kill every spider they see, just to be sure.
but think about this: a state like oklahoma is
literally crawling with these spiders, yet actual documented bites are pretty darned rare. why? well, because these critters would rather do just about anything
except bite you. think about it: they bite you - you notice - they get squashed. not a very good scenario for continuing the species from the spider's scenario, right? so just about the only times people are bitten occur when the spider is pinched between an article of clothing and someone's skin.
a great website by a true expert in the field of brown recluses - he refers to them as 'the richard jewell of the spider world,' which is hilarously appropriate - can be found
here. the poor guy has been run ragged by hundreds of people insisting that the state of california has been overrun by brown recluses.
a snippet:
Quote:
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These are not the opinions of the University of California Riverside however, they are the opinions of a highly volatile arachnologist who is bloody tired of everybody claiming that every little mark on their body is the result of a brown recluse bite and who believe with a religious zeal that brown recluses are part of the California spider fauna despite the incredibly overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The tone of this article is purposely crafted to mimic the hyperanxious state of the paranoid public because many of them have trouble listening to boring cold scientific presentations (of which this may still be guilty despite my intentions) when their beliefs are solidly based on erroneous general consensus.
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anyway, on to the subject of rattlesnakes. i'm speaking here as someone born and raised in new mexico, who has lived in the state more than half my life, but unfortunately currently find myself in the dreary people's republic of maryland. my dad killed every rattler he saw. i've killed three myself, before i realized that was not the only possible way of dealing with them. i even participated in a couple of rattlesnake roundups in western oklahoma, which i now regret. nowadays, if i find one in an out of the way place, i leave it be. if i find it on my property, or in an inhabited area, i move it.
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Just kidding. I understand.. and as one moves from region to region, it is really interesting to see how the approaches/opinions/care and concern about wildlife changes. It really depends on the priorities of the people.
I have relocated 2 nonvenomous since we have been back in Alamo no problems. When we lived in Carlsbad, my hubby went into the garage in January, my son comes in and tells me to go get a shovel, sure enough there is a rattlesnake in my garage, it is now dead. Like I said I do not go out looking for them to kill but in my garage no go. Thank God it was my hubby who saw it first, in his line of work he has to be aware of his surroundings, had it been one of my kids I doubt very much if they would have been paying attention and I sure would hate for one of my babies to have to deal with that kind of pain and suffering. But thanks for the suggestion.
