PA Spiders (recent brown recluse issues)

[SorryIMovedBack]

MRSA staph, not "mercer sraph" like that article says. Sometimes an abscess is actually MRSA, and it's misdiagnosed as spider bite. That guy may have contracted the MRSA in the hospital ER, even. But it's out there on lots of surfaces, and skin infections are becoming more common.

[Pennsyman]

Just got out of the Hospital after 5 days of intense Antibiotics IVs, fever was 104, blood pressure elevated, vomiting, nausea, feverish rash that grew from ankle to knee in 1 day. It blistered and oozed. Said it was a bad case of cellulitis brought on by a brown recluse bite. Thee spiders are quite common to PA. They are reddish in color on legs brown body and a fiddle shaped mark on there back. Commonly known as a fiddle back spider. They are about the size of a nickle to quarter. Mature ones can be up to half dollar size. The infants are most dangerous because they have more concentrated venom, which is actually a harsh strain of bacteria. Be careful they are just about anywhere. The one that bit me was under a wooden bench outside my house. Just killed one in shower last night. Look for the violin on back. Recluses are wonderers and very seldom set up shop at one place.

[Michael J. McFadden]

Summering's first link from Sept. '08's posting is excellent: good clear imaging in the video and good info overall. The BR spider certainly has the horror movie style of crawling with very creepily coordinated leg movements -- at least this one day... maybe it went to Spider Dancing School? ;>

One surprising thing though is that the map in Summering's link shows the spiders as mainly being limited to the SW and lower central part of the US. Is it perhaps an older map and they've been spreading or are we just hearing more about relatively rare cases in PA etc that were always there but not properly identified? Anyone know?

Also: a GREAT resource for figuring out "What's that bug" questions is, surprisingly enough, WhatsThatBug.com

Who woulda guessed, eh? :>

[Three Ducks]

I'll never forget my first summer in Oklahoma. I had to go up to Tulsa for a business trip and meet/greet type of thing. There was a group of ladies who had heard I moved to the area from New Yawk (they considered me a "city slicker" I suppose) and decided to school me on all of the creepy crawlies here. One of them was the brown recluse. I got to hear stories about how they killed animals and laid people up in bed for weeks with a single bite. I did wind up shaking out my bed sheets for a few weeks after they shared those stories with me - just to be safe of course.

I have seen them here and they do have a fiddle marking on their backs. I have a pre-schooler and two dogs, so when in doubt I kill it. The one I saw was all brown and looked somewhat dusty. Never heard of red legs on them but I certainly don't know everything.

I thought I could get away from those moving up by you guys too.

[Michael J. McFadden]

I *may* be wrong on this, but I *think* there are very few brown recluses in Northern Alaska. ;>