# Brown Recluse Spider bites

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-recluse-spider-bites/555700>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 1, 2010, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-recluse-spider-bites/555700 "2010-10-01T10:00:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-recluse-spider-bites/555700/21 "2010-10-03T00:34:24Z")

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It has a lot to do with your natural resistance to the venom too. Some people get bit and only feel pain. Others can die. All possibilities between those extremes are possible.  
I saw program on TV that said they checked a neighborhood in Missouri for brown recluses. They found 80 percent of the homes had some. But they hide in the dark and stay away from humans. You have to go to their territory.

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**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-recluse-spider-bites/555700/22 "2010-10-03T01:36:17Z")

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> [@gonzomax](#):
>
> I saw program on TV that said they checked a neighborhood in Missouri for brown recluses. They found 80 percent of the homes had some. But they hide in the dark and stay away from humans. You have to go to their territory.

Yep. This is an important aspect of brown recluses.

I just realized that, in my first post, i forgot to actually link to the site where i got my information. It’s [here](http://spiders.ucr.edu/myth.html).

Here’s what he says about brown recluse populations in areas that actually do have the spider:

> [@](#):
>
> 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.

My emphasis.

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**Author:** ![txobbin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e8c25b/32.png) [@txobbin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/txobbin)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-recluse-spider-bites/555700/23 "2010-10-03T11:56:57Z")

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> [@enigmatic](#):
>
> Well yes, it’s just that there is something of a gulf between “controversial as to whether treatment helps symptoms” and “controversial as to whether this treatment may increase the chances of you dropping dead” that I thought was worth highlighting.

True, I gotcha. The next post sums up my thinking.

> [@gonzomax](#):
>
> It has a lot to do with your natural resistance to the venom too. Some people get bit and only feel pain. Others can die. All possibilities between those extremes are possible.  
> (snip)

I was trying to narrow down the possibilities.

> [@mhendo](#):
>
> (snip)
> 
> I just realized that, in my first post, i forgot to actually link to the site where i got my information. It’s [here](http://spiders.ucr.edu/myth.html).
> 
> (snip)

Thanks, I’m sending that link along too.

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