Brown Recluse Spider

 

Brown Recluse Spider | Brown recluse spider or violin spider is a spider with a venomous bite. Brown recluse spiders build irregular webs that often shelter consists of disordered wires. The wild species lives in the southern states, ranging from central Texas to western Georgia and the internal variation resides in the lower reaches of the Midwest. They frequently build their webs in woodpiles and sheds, closets, garages, plenum, cellars and other places that are dry and generally undisturbed. If residence in human dwellings, they seem cardboard preferred, possibly because it mimics the rotting tree bark which they naturally inhabit. They are also found in shoes, in cupboards, bed sheets of underutilized beds, clothes piled or stacked or left lying on the floor, inside work gloves, behind baseboards and pictures, in toilets and near sources of heat when ambient temperatures are lower than usual. 

 

Brown recluse spider is native to the United States from the southern Midwest south to the Gulf of Mexico. The native range lies roughly south of a line from southeastern Nebraska through southern Iowa, Illinois and Indiana to southwestern Ohio. In the southern states, it is native from central Texas to western Georgia and north to Kentucky. Brown recluse spiders are usually between 6-20 mm, but can be larger. While normally light to medium brown, they vary in color from cream to dark brown or blackish gray. The cephalothorax and abdomen are not necessarily the same color. These spiders usually have markings on the dorsal side of the cephalothorax, with a black line that looks like a violin with the neck of the violin to the back of the spider, resulting in the nicknames fiddle back spider, brown fiddler or violin spider. 

 

Scientific classification
Kingdom:     Animalia
Phylum:     Arthropoda
Class:     Arachnida
Order:     Araneae
Family:     Sicariidae
Genus:     Loxosceles
Species:     L. reclusa
Adult Brown recluse spiders often live about one to two years. Each female produces several egg sacs over a period of two to three months from May to July, with about fifty eggs per bag. The eggs hatch in about a month. Brown recluse spiders take about a year to grow to adulthood. The Brown recluse spider is resilient and can tolerate up to six months of drought and scarcity or absence of food, especially observed in an opportunity in a controlled captivity survives for more than five years without food. 

 

A brown recluse's stance on a flat surface is generally radial with all legs extended. When alarmed the body can be lowered, it pulls the two legs stretched back in a defensive position and pull the rear pair of legs in a position to lunge forward, and stand motionless with raised pedipalps. The pedipalps in adult specimens are dark, very prominent, and are usually held horizontally forward. When threatened flight that is usually, apparently in order to avoid a conflict, and as may be further held not in contact with a fast horizontal rotating movements. The spider is usually not to jump abruptly unless touched, and even then it is the avoidance of movement is more of a horizontal lunge in place of an arch of itself completely from the surface. In carrying out the brown recluse does not seem to leave a silk line, which in any case, it may be more easily tracked when it is running. 

 

The bite is often initially not felt and could not immediately painful, but it can be serious. The Brown recluse spider carries a potentially deadly poison hemotoxic. Most of the bites are small with no necrosis. However, a small number of brown recluse bites do produce severe dermonecrotic lesions, an even smaller number produce severe cutaneous (skin) or viscerocutaneous (systemic) symptoms. Most brown recluse bites do not lead to necrosis or systemic effects. When both types loxoscelism result, systemic effects may occur before necrosis, because the poison spreads throughout the body in minutes. 

 

First aid involves the application of an ice pack to control the inflammation, the application of aloe vera to soothe and help control the pain and prompt medical care. As can be easily taken care of, the spider to be aligned with the patient in a clear, well-closed container as can be identified. In suspected cases of recluse bites, dapsone is often effective for the treatment of necrosis, but controlled clinical trials prove equally effective. However, dapsone effective in treating many "spider bite", because many of these cases are really misdiagnosed microbial infections. [33] There are conflicting reports regarding the efficacy in the treatment of brown recluse bites, and some have suggested it should not be used routinely, if at all. Wound infection is rare. Antibiotics are not recommended unless there is a credible diagnosis of infection.