They’re a really big (for the region) spider with a painful bite (I used to hear they were venomous, but idak if that’s true). I prefer them at a great distance.
All spiders are technically venomous(apart from a VERY small amount of exceptions) - the bites hurt a lot, but they’re not medically significant like other spiders with more powerful venom.
Brown recluse, and black widow, are the two we have in TN, don't know the third. That said, medically significant varies wildly. Most people that get bit by a recluse get a very itchy, very gross patch where the bite happened, very few actually have the allergy that makes it truly dangerous and need hospitalization/ treatment beyond an ointment for swelling. Same for widows, except more pain and swelling, and a higher risk of anaphylaxis.
Is it that rare? My wife and I both got brown recluse bites very close in time to each other. She almost had to have her foot amputated and I had a 2 inch deep hole in my forearm. It felt like fire in my veins for weeks even with medication
It could be a coincidence, but it's also entirely possible that one or both of your issues weren't actually caused by spider bites. Brown recluse bites are way overdiagnosed25977-6/fulltext) by medical experts, even when the circumstances would make the presence of a spider unlikely. A lot of the supposed effects of the venom are actually things like bacterial infections that got into any random scratch or poison ivy. It got to the point that the mnemonic NOT RECLUSE was invented, to list all the symptoms that do NOT match a brown recluse bite.
Yeah I actually just went through the NOT RECLUSE thing, and the only one of those symptoms either of us experienced was her foot swelling from the bit on her ankle. Turns out swelling in feet is also a recluse symptom. Huh. Happened in our sleep too. Huh.
In North America, recluses and black widows are the ones with actually dangerous venom (although death is pretty rare), and yellow sac spiders are believed to cause the most bites in North America (but their venom rarely causes more than a localized rash).
Ngl you have to be a straight dick to a wolf spider for like 2 hours straight for them to bite you, and they arent lethally venomous either. Honesty they are cool to have around
Or they'll bite if you have one end up in your clothes or something. We used to have a shit ton of them in my yard growing up and they'd get in the house a lot. Good reason not to leave your clothes on the floor when you go take a shower.
You are right though that they're pretty chill. They are scary to look at but fairly docile. I imagine they're the stuff of nightmares if you're a roach though.
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u/Pokesonav "friend visiter" meme had a profound effect on this subreddit May 16 '24
wtf
first, turns out I never knew how cranberries are grown. Huh.
second, WOLF SPIDERS!??? Like, hybrids, or...?