Casey's father was bitten by a brown recluse spider last year. He is blogging the photos of day-by-day changes. Today, he presents photos of his father's finger bursting open. Link
Reader comment:
Vann says:
That's some gnarly hand Casey's father had, but according to what I've been reading recently, it most likely *wasn't* from a brown recluse bite:
I'm no expert of course — but if it wasn't true, it wouldn't be on the web, would it?
Chris says:
That link Vann provided only talks about the lack of Brown Recluse Spiders IN California.
From the photo blog owners own comment:
Casey Sorrow said…"Honestly, since I was in Michigan and he was in Arizona while this occured…"
John M. says:
While Brown Recluse spiders don't generally live in California, there are at least SIX other kinds of recluse spiders that do live there. Some, like the Chilean Recluse, have pretty nasty bites.
Margaret says:
There was a fascinating article in the New Yorker recently about an arachnologist hunting deadly recluses in the basements of downtown Los Angles.
It's interesting to note that recluses were actually considered harmless until the late nineteen-fifties!
Thanks for the great work at boingboing!
Steve says:
I'm a spider-studying PhD candidate.
While Rick Vetter's site, linked by Vann, only
pertains directly to Loxosceles reclusa in California,
it is still the best source of high quality
information about recluses on the internet.While the other species at John M.'s link are recorded
from California, they are very infrequently seen. L.
reclusa, on the other hand, likes to live around
people and is quite common in cellars and sheds in its
range.The over-reporting and misdiagnosis of recluse
envenomations is documented here:
DL Swanson, RS Vetter 2005 — Bites of Brown Recluse
Spiders and Suspected Necrotic Arachnidism. The New
England Journal of Medicine 352:700-707 (Feb. 17,
2005)I've heard at an anecdotal-but-maybe-credible level
that another/other Loxosceles species is/are causing
symptoms around Tucson. As far as I know no one's
really looked into it, and if you read the NEJM
article above you will find that there's a whole lot
of stuff that routinely gets misdiagnosed as a recluse
bite.
Michael says:
This is regarding the question of the spider bite — here is an article on members of the recluse family in California that appeared in a peer reviewed journal for UC Davis.
The upshot: There are only 5 types of recluse in CA, BUT; Only 3 are native, only 1 is widespread – of the latter two, "There are additional species (L. russelli, L. palma, L. martha) but they are so uncommon that they are of scientific interest only."
The other two are: non-native species intercepted in shipments, with no native populations, and an infestation confined to a small area of LA.
That says nuthin' 'bout Arizona, though.
