The story flooded my Facebook feed: A house in Missouri was infested with 5,000 brown recluse spiders. More than one of my friends said they’d just burn that house down if it was theirs.
Brown recluses have long been a source of terror and urban legend. Mention them to a group, and chances are someone will claim to know someone who’s been bitten, maybe lost a hand or maybe even died.
I’m not immune to the hype: I scrutinize the small spiders that come into my house every fall with the same fervor as someone hoping to prove the existence of Bigfoot.
But they never appear venomous. When I tried to identify the small brown spider I saw the other day, a Google Image search revealed that it was, most likely, a wolf spider.
It turns out I was lucky I hadn’t been bitten. “They certainly hurt,” says toxicologist Christopher Holstege, MD. He suspects some rumored brown recluse bites actually came from the wolf spider. Those bites cause a lot of pain, but they won’t lead to serious problems.
Brown Recluses in Virginia
A lot of people claim they’ve seen brown recluses in Virginia, although the spiders aren’t common here. They’re “more common in the popular press than in real life,” the Virginia Tech Department of Entomology notes. Penn State College of Agriculture says the recluse is established in 15 states; Virginia isn’t one of them.
That doesn’t mean they’re not here: They’re established in neighboring Tennessee, and they can end up in moving boxes and suitcases.
However, Holstege is the co-medical director of UVA’s Blue Ridge Poison Center, which serves a large portion of Virginia, including the southwest tip along the Tennessee border. A large chunk of the Poison Center’s calls are medication mistakes and exposure to household toxins; their doctors have never seen a brown recluse bite. Some people suspect a bite when they develop lesions, Holstege says, but the true cause is always something else.
What do we have in Virginia? Deer ticks. Virginia had 925 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in 2013. As Holstege points out, “Spiders help control the tick population.” So if he sees a spider in his house? “My kids capture it and put it outside.”
What About Black Widows?
The Poison Center does treat bites from the black widow, which is the only venomous spider established in Virginia. “For how prevalent they are, we don’t really see many bites from them, either,” Holstege says.
The spiders’ goal is to keep themselves and their webs safe, not to bite you. Brown recluses “are called recluse for a reason,” Holstege says.
If you get bitten by any spider, Holstege’s advice is to “stay calm; see how it progresses. If you start having more pain in the extremity or if you get spasms, you might want to seek medical attention. Black widow bites aren’t like snakebites, where the earlier you get the antivenin, the better. You can come in anytime.”
If you’re unsure about a spider bite, you can call your local poison center at 1.800.222.1222.
Watch Out for Snakes, Too
How many copperhead bites has the Blue Ridge Poison Center seen this year? Check back tomorrow or subscribe to the blog to find out!
Information about snakes was very informative however I do live in the south east United States and I was just wanting to know if the information applies to us as well particularly Georgia. Most of the described species stated is also down here along with a few more. Thank you for your time and hope to hear back soon.
Georgia has the copperhead and the cottonmouth (aka water moccasin) just like Virginia. Additionally, it has a few varieties of rattlesnake (Virginia only has one) and the coral snake. It also has 40 species of non-venomous snakes. Here are a couple of resources our Poison Center recommends:
“Snake Information and Resources”
By The Wildlife Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources
http://georgiawildlife.com/georgiasnakes
The Georgia Poison Center
http://www.georgiapoisoncenter.org
If a snake gets into your house and you leave it alone and not try to kill it, will it be more likely to get back out the same way it got in or will it stay inside and possibly bite you later? I’ve heard that snakes are more afraid of you than you are them and by them having poor eyesight they feel your presence through vibrations, but if you know that one is in your house should you be corned about it hanging around and later bitting you or should you call someone who is trained to handle it and make sure that it isn’t still inside of your house? How would you know whether the snake is still indoors or have gotten out?
Sorry for our delay in responding. We’re not experts in snake removal. It would be best for you to call a snake removal service with these questions, especially if you think the snake may be venomous.
The article was most helpful. Thank you for the service.
Ben Lehman
I have black widows, brown widows, red widows, brown recluse, mountain lions and black bears here in gretna VA. Not to mention those mutant large cayotes.
I grow hemp and for whatever reason it attracts everything. Thats right I said red widows they are not just in Fl
I was living in Loudoun County and I got bit by a brown recluse. Although they can’t survive in Virginia, they are here. I got bit while cutting and chopping a pile of wood from a tree I downed back in the early 1990s. Here it turned out, the spider got on my property through the bark mulch that I bought at my local home repair store. The bark mulch came from a supplier in North Carolina. There are brown recuse spiders in North Carolina. About a month later, I returned to the incredulous Health Department office with a baby food jar with a small spider, about the size Lincoln’s head on a penny, and asked, “OK, so what is this?” It turned out their entomology expert agreed with me. It was a brown recluse and it got here from bark mulch that I purchased from my local home repair store. The entomologist said this because I found the spider about a yard above a pine bark mulch topped flower bed on the back of my garage.