I feel this page would be much more amusing if it just continued forever and got more and more absurd identifications of "possible brown recluse" as you went down.
It looks like a rare type, along with perfect condition and original matching, so it all lines up - and that price is a "we'll sell when we want to" price.
>got more and more absurd identifications of "possible brown recluse" as you went down.
"If the spider has brown fur but weighs about sixty pounds, has a wagging tail and is licking you with its tongue, you might actually have discovered a labradoodle..."
The /r/spiders subreddit likes to meme on all the people asking for things that are clearly not recluses, you can find some entertaining ones by using the search: (obvious cw for spiders)
That would be in poor taste! These spiders are dangerous, identification is potentially life-saving. Not a great place to mix in humorous misinformation.
The ML model is an entomologists/arachnologist trained for 5+ years, if not decades. Start training with data from iNaturalist, but then realize they are already using AI detection models, and they note they are far from accurate, and they don't anticipate them ever being accurate.
Part of the problem is you need scopes/cameras with resolution for things under 2mm. People don't have those, nor the expertise to setup the light, etc. to take the pictures required to diagnose them. Then they need precise angles to take the shots at, etc.
Not impossible, and could certainly eliminate a whole suite of things that are not, but at the end of the day you're going to need a salaried person to make the final call if you want to commercialize this and not get sued... I suspect.
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're something particularly interesting like orb weavers
I'm not sure if there are just too many species or if just nobody cares?
Well we as a species are probably more interested in whether it's really a tiger in the bushes that's out to get us and not in that tiger's family tree.
There are some variously-imperfect methods to ID things that you can take photos of.
The Seek app by iNaturalist has pretty decent AI to identify plants and animals. It can limit itself to broader IDs such as “wasp family” if it doesn’t find enough characteristics. It can also be wildly off sometimes in its specific IDs because it’s image recognition.
There are also loads of dedicated Facebook groups specifically for ID. I know that some of the plant and mushroom ones are very good, I suspect spider-focused groups are similarly enthusiastic. They can also be wildly off, with the added component of traded insults between different people who are all certain they are each correct, and the others are all idiots “who wouldn’t know a recluse from a redback even after they got bit.” This could be a pro or a con, depending on what you find entertaining.
State extensions are going to be the most reliable, and will likely have the most info on the obscure local wildlife. I don’t know how willing they are to ID from photos though; it may vary from place to place. They may want you to capture one and send it in.
Nah step one is to look for the disqualifying features that are easy to see from a distance: striped legs, spines, conspicuous web, multicolored abdomen
Step two is to run away if it's still not disqualified because even with the helpful photos I couldn't figure out where its eyes are and I'm not getting that close to an actual spider, ridiculous
The problem I have is that, no, the spiders in my bathroom do not have any of these features. I don't know what kind of Loxosceles they are, but I am pretty sure they are some kind of Loxosceles. I do put them outside whenever I see them because they make me nervous, but they also seem to be generally uninterested in biting me.
On the other hand, my house also seems to be home to a thriving Scutigera population. They eat spiders, right?
Most spider species can't be identified at species level without a microscope, but if you can post the link to a good photo here maybe we could take a look to it.
> You won't be able to tell what it is (and please don'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.
It's fairly common for a family in recluse country to discover a nest of hundreds of them behind the headboard of their bed that has been there for years, and yet nobody ever got bitten.
I live in Kansas City, MO. They're everywhere around here. Have found them in my house several times and even been bitten by them. I guess I'm just lucky but I never had an overly bad reaction to their venom. (knock on wood)
> Have found them in my house several times and even been bitten by them. I guess I'm just lucky but I never had an overly bad reaction to their venom.
I think you may just be lucky, they may dry bite, or maybe there’s some folks with antibodies. I have a 2-month-old recluse bite wound on my leg, it’s currently an open wound about 1.5 inches across. Been through debridement, 3 courses of antibiotics, etc. Appointment at a wound clinic next week to see if there’s anything can be done.
I too have been bitten multiple times in the past with no serious effect, just a black spot that healed slowly and left a tiny acne-like scar.
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.
I don't know what "extremely rare" 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's bite was on her neck and was misdiagnosed the first time she saw someone for it.
"The 2019 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers recorded 790 individual exposures to brown recluse spiders, with 174 moderate outcomes, 24 major outcomes, and 0 dealths."
> 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
That sounds like a really bad way to identify them. I'd much prefer to identify them at a distance. (You may have been referring to understanding an existing bite, but that's different from the article.)
> That sounds like a really bad way to identify them. I'd much prefer to identify them at a distance. (You may have been referring to understanding an existing bite, but that's different from the article.)
haha, only serious (currently suffering from a 2-month-past recluse spider bite wound, going to the wound clinic next week cause it’s not healing very well).
yes, the progression of the bite wound is unmistakeable.
This would make an actually interesting (and potentially useful) captcha system. "Pick the spiders without spines"..."pick the spiders that are only one color"...etc. Call it either "creepy captcha" or "creature captcha".
Saw the headline and thought "oh here we go with the myths." I'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.
And this is his site! So no myths here; just good science.
I don't know about that, but they love wood. I find them from time to time in the corners of my fence. Only about one a year. Once I found thousands when the eggs hatched but they quickly dispersed. An interesting thing about Black Widows is that their webs are really strong and unorganized, so I usually see that before finding the spider, which is pretty shy.
Yeah, their webs are pretty distinctive. Besides wood piles, I've found them in brick piles and folded up shade umbrellas a lot. They seem to enjoy materials that can hold moisture without quite reaching the levels of "damp".
Biggest I ever saw was in an umbrella while I was de-winterizing the pool that I worked summers at. Was absentmindedly going down the rows, opening up umbrellas when I happened to look up and shrieked. Thing's abdomen had to be at least an inch, maybe an inch and a half. The pool manager (70 yo CA native, so seen his fair share) thought I was exaggerating until he walked over and said it was the biggest he'd ever seen, too.
I used to find black widows frequently near a melaleuca tree which was near my side door, in south Florida. Day and night. Not infrequently in the house. They always seemed passive, but I still ushered them outdoors.
I have yet to identify a recluse with any confidence, although a friend of a friend lost his arm after one crawled upward from his hand to shoulder, biting repeatedly as it moved. I think delayed treatment was the ultimate cause of severity.
But a flat spider can't save you from Zika, Malaria, Yellow Fever, Rift Valley fever, Dengue, West Nile or Saint Louis Encephalitis, neither can save our pets from dog heartworm
So we need to sign some peace treaty with them, because the world would be a really dangerous place without spiders.
There are like 3000 spider species and less than 30 are dangerous for us. This is a really small percentage. the truth s that most spiders will break its fangs if would try to fight against our skin cheratin.
So maybe when we see the next spider at home we should identify it, realize that is a calm inoffensive species (99% of probabilities), give it some cm in a quiet corner and tell the children that is its personal friendly bodyguard monster (but unable to grant spiderman superpowers) and should be left alone doing the job.
Of course I would not advice to have brown recluse pets, but the spiders that eat brown recluses and will never ever quit their small corner in the window? well, is a better deal than having roundworms swimming in your lymph. Think about it.
@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.
Better yet, have a startup fund a real-life entomologist for 2-5 years, remote is possible, to keep identifying pictures in this type of forum, in return for that relatively paltry sum (maybe 70k/year + 10k for scope + camera setup for more detailed work, + 15k for operating a year), you'd get a far richer dateset to "commercialize".
Yes, I know spiders are not insects, I'm an entomologist too.
It looks like they’re still active as of 20min ago [0]. Super handy account. Just scrolling through the pics gives you a much better sense for identifying them. I suspect I’ve seen one or two in my yard, but now I think I have a better idea of what to look for.
Great! I know there was a hiatus at one point. It's definitely a cool feed. I worked with one of the OPs there, might have to send him a PM to see what's up.
Twitter via scientists can be nice. There are a good number of people who adhere to "just the science" and post interesting/beautiful things from their labs/work.
> What someone needs to do, perhaps, is to use that corpa of images and responses as the start of the all-powerful AI.
This already exists and is pretty good at what it does. It's called iNaturalist. It attempts to identify all living things and in my experience gets about 80% there. Experts will also occasionally come along and more accurately ID things.
On top of this, the submitted data is used for scientific research which is amazing!
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.
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'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.
Completely agreed. This is a common type of page associated with extension units. They are written by, and for those who are doing pest-control style work, for example. There is much room for improvement, including better diagnostic tools, clear choice-based keys, etc. There are actually very few people who can accurate diagnose these critters down to species, let alone "recluse". Those people depend on tools (6 eyes are very small), morphological knowledge, etc. There is a real need for new, purpose-built page whose content is provided for specific reasons (this is here to answer question X to audience Y via information I, if you use it for other things YRMV). Getting scientists to understand these needs is tough, they are almost always talking to other scientists, which is completly fine and necessary, but branching out is hard. A classic UI/UX problem.
And by blockchain you mean its true evolution, which is totally and completely not a blockchain/nft/loot box, at all, really, the "silken highway". Once you touch it, you're stuck, vibrations you give off as you struggle to unsubscribe transmit to all suckers^d others, also alerting the central spider-mother (from which the highway grows, may she never falter) who grows the inescapable network of sticky threads via a 5% take of your offering through her bit-rotting venom.
I was walking into a dark room and I turned on the light, I turned around to close the door and noticed the giant 3” spider right above the light (I know everyone in Australia thinks it’s adorable I found an itty-bitty spider - but 3” is big in the US). I think it’s a brown recluse so I get someone to toss me a broom and I kill it. While cleaning that up I get a good look at the legs and realize there is green in addition to brown, so it was just a grass spider, not poisonous at all. But still I’m glad my hand missed it when I turned on the light, and I didn’t walk into its web late at night while going to the bathroom in the dark.
I'm a little bit arachnophobic sometimes, and one of the most stomach turning moments I recall was going into the garage barefoot and having a spider the size of a small mouse run across the floor and bang into my foot. I've run into a few more specimens since then, usually ones that fall into the laundry sink and can't get back out, and I think they're some kind of wolf spider. Apparently they bite, but they're not venomous so you just get a nasty infection. [Shudders]
Here'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'll kill it. I'll drop the whole weight of the "sapiens" part of my species on that toxic creature. No quarter given or expected.
There'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 am fully with you, but I regret to admit that given the multitudes of insects and arachnids in this world, the "usual amount of legs" is probably more than six.
There are two (2) species of spider in the US that are "dangerous": Brown recluse and black widow.
And that's it. There is no number three. You only need to learn to identify those two, because no other spider's bite is medically significant in the US unless you happen to be allergic (which some fraction of people are, to be fair).
Half your work is done because you probably already know what a black widow looks like; they are quite distinctive. (They also tend not to hang out in human living spaces like brown recluses do. Black widows prefer garages and barns.)
Both species are quite shy and rarely bite people. Most bites happen when the spider gets trapped between clothing and skin and it bites because it thinks it's about to be crushed. Neither species will chase you or jump on you.
There are spiders that will jump on you. They're called jumping spiders. They are harmless, quite cute, and make good pets. Unlike most spiders, jumpers have excellent eyesight and they will chase a laser beam like a cat.
I’ve been told that spiders can be beneficial for getting rid of (i.e. eating) other pests - actual insects. Obviously if I find a spider in my living space, I’ll relocate it outside. Since almost spiders, in the US, are virtually harmless, they’re pretty easy to move with a cup/tissue/paper/whatever.
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!
As someone who had to identify Chilean recluses (Loxosceles laeta, 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.
118 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 183 ms ] threadThings like https://www.oldbug.com/brownbeauty.htm and so forth.
I checked out the rest of the site, too, they look dead serious.
And they still have an @earthlink.net email address!
https://bringatrailer.com/volkswagen/beetle/
If this is a true split-window, it's the most rare mass-produced bug. I'm not sure I'd pay more than 50K for it, but it's definitely a rare specimen.
"If the spider has brown fur but weighs about sixty pounds, has a wagging tail and is licking you with its tongue, you might actually have discovered a labradoodle..."
https://old.reddit.com/r/spiders/search?q=recluse&restrict_s...
and an ID chart: https://i.redd.it/avet69mnjga31.jpg
And slightly off topic, but I love the "/r/geology rock identification guide": https://i.imgur.com/Asnut.png
isthisabrownrecluse.com or something
or it would probably work well with notahotdog
[1] "A real photo of a horrible, anxiety-inducing scary real spider that can kill humans, 55mm lens"
Part of the problem is you need scopes/cameras with resolution for things under 2mm. People don't have those, nor the expertise to setup the light, etc. to take the pictures required to diagnose them. Then they need precise angles to take the shots at, etc.
Not impossible, and could certainly eliminate a whole suite of things that are not, but at the end of the day you're going to need a salaried person to make the final call if you want to commercialize this and not get sued... I suspect.
I'm not sure if there are just too many species or if just nobody cares?
The Seek app by iNaturalist has pretty decent AI to identify plants and animals. It can limit itself to broader IDs such as “wasp family” if it doesn’t find enough characteristics. It can also be wildly off sometimes in its specific IDs because it’s image recognition.
There are also loads of dedicated Facebook groups specifically for ID. I know that some of the plant and mushroom ones are very good, I suspect spider-focused groups are similarly enthusiastic. They can also be wildly off, with the added component of traded insults between different people who are all certain they are each correct, and the others are all idiots “who wouldn’t know a recluse from a redback even after they got bit.” This could be a pro or a con, depending on what you find entertaining.
State extensions are going to be the most reliable, and will likely have the most info on the obscure local wildlife. I don’t know how willing they are to ID from photos though; it may vary from place to place. They may want you to capture one and send it in.
If you see a couple of eyes much bigger than the rest, is not a recluse.
If you count 8 eyes, is not a recluse
If the eyes are arranged in a rectangle or trapezoid, not recluse.
If you see single eyes isolated, not recluse
This list will discard the 95% of the suspicious spiders that you can find at home
Otherwise: can be, but not necessarily, a brown recluse.
Step two is to run away if it's still not disqualified because even with the helpful photos I couldn't figure out where its eyes are and I'm not getting that close to an actual spider, ridiculous
On the other hand, my house also seems to be home to a thriving Scutigera population. They eat spiders, right?
I wonder what the author is referring to.
The page says it was updated January 2005; the only things I know about AB5 are from Wikipedia, which says signed into law 2019-09-18?
I take 'em outside and let 'em take their chances with the birds, if the cats don't get 'em first.
There are undoubtedly thousands of them under the house. Hasn't been a problem.
I think you may just be lucky, they may dry bite, or maybe there’s some folks with antibodies. I have a 2-month-old recluse bite wound on my leg, it’s currently an open wound about 1.5 inches across. Been through debridement, 3 courses of antibiotics, etc. Appointment at a wound clinic next week to see if there’s anything can be done.
I too have been bitten multiple times in the past with no serious effect, just a black spot that healed slowly and left a tiny acne-like scar.
Sorry to hear about your leg!!
Me fear of them just increased dramatically. I thought I was immune but may just have been lucky, as you said.
I don't know what "extremely rare" 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's bite was on her neck and was misdiagnosed the first time she saw someone for it.
"The 2019 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers recorded 790 individual exposures to brown recluse spiders, with 174 moderate outcomes, 24 major outcomes, and 0 dealths."
> 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
That sounds like a really bad way to identify them. I'd much prefer to identify them at a distance. (You may have been referring to understanding an existing bite, but that's different from the article.)
I'm pretty sure they were joking
haha, only serious (currently suffering from a 2-month-past recluse spider bite wound, going to the wound clinic next week cause it’s not healing very well).
yes, the progression of the bite wound is unmistakeable.
And this is his site! So no myths here; just good science.
I had someone tell me if I went out at night with a UV pen and shined it underneath stuff, esp. patio furniture, I'd find lots of black widows.
Tried it; didn't see any.
Biggest I ever saw was in an umbrella while I was de-winterizing the pool that I worked summers at. Was absentmindedly going down the rows, opening up umbrellas when I happened to look up and shrieked. Thing's abdomen had to be at least an inch, maybe an inch and a half. The pool manager (70 yo CA native, so seen his fair share) thought I was exaggerating until he walked over and said it was the biggest he'd ever seen, too.
I have yet to identify a recluse with any confidence, although a friend of a friend lost his arm after one crawled upward from his hand to shoulder, biting repeatedly as it moved. I think delayed treatment was the ultimate cause of severity.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wqawcb/m...
Seeing that makes me want to go check her other shoes lol.
It can't bite me if it's flat.
So we need to sign some peace treaty with them, because the world would be a really dangerous place without spiders.
There are like 3000 spider species and less than 30 are dangerous for us. This is a really small percentage. the truth s that most spiders will break its fangs if would try to fight against our skin cheratin.
So maybe when we see the next spider at home we should identify it, realize that is a calm inoffensive species (99% of probabilities), give it some cm in a quiet corner and tell the children that is its personal friendly bodyguard monster (but unable to grant spiderman superpowers) and should be left alone doing the job.
Of course I would not advice to have brown recluse pets, but the spiders that eat brown recluses and will never ever quit their small corner in the window? well, is a better deal than having roundworms swimming in your lymph. Think about it.
Better yet, have a startup fund a real-life entomologist for 2-5 years, remote is possible, to keep identifying pictures in this type of forum, in return for that relatively paltry sum (maybe 70k/year + 10k for scope + camera setup for more detailed work, + 15k for operating a year), you'd get a far richer dateset to "commercialize".
Yes, I know spiders are not insects, I'm an entomologist too.
[0] https://twitter.com/RecluseOrNot/status/1560235560324710402
Twitter via scientists can be nice. There are a good number of people who adhere to "just the science" and post interesting/beautiful things from their labs/work.
This already exists and is pretty good at what it does. It's called iNaturalist. It attempts to identify all living things and in my experience gets about 80% there. Experts will also occasionally come along and more accurately ID things.
On top of this, the submitted data is used for scientific research which is amazing!
I'm targeting $100m investments by Dec, with an IPO or ICO in early May at a $1b+ valuation.
https://entomology.ucr.edu/news/2017/02/15/no-thats-not-brow...
There'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.
And that's it. There is no number three. You only need to learn to identify those two, because no other spider's bite is medically significant in the US unless you happen to be allergic (which some fraction of people are, to be fair).
Half your work is done because you probably already know what a black widow looks like; they are quite distinctive. (They also tend not to hang out in human living spaces like brown recluses do. Black widows prefer garages and barns.)
Both species are quite shy and rarely bite people. Most bites happen when the spider gets trapped between clothing and skin and it bites because it thinks it's about to be crushed. Neither species will chase you or jump on you.
There are spiders that will jump on you. They're called jumping spiders. They are harmless, quite cute, and make good pets. Unlike most spiders, jumpers have excellent eyesight and they will chase a laser beam like a cat.