[HN Gopher] How to identify and misidentify a brown recluse spid...
___________________________________________________________________
How to identify and misidentify a brown recluse spider (2005)
Author : vector_spaces
Score : 86 points
Date : 2022-08-19 07:05 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spiders.ucr.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (spiders.ucr.edu)
| throwanem wrote:
| If you _see_ it, it 's almost certainly not a recluse. They
| weren't given that name for nothing, after all.
| libele wrote:
| NOT RECLUSE Numerous Occurrence
| Timing Red center Elevated Chronic
| Large Ulcerates too early Swelling
| Exudative
|
| https://spiders.ucr.edu/what-not-recluse-bite
|
| https://entomology.ucr.edu/news/2017/02/15/no-thats-not-brow...
| mithr wrote:
| I mostly find myself thankful that this site does not support
| embedded images. Makes it one of the only places an arachnophobe
| like myself can calmly click into a discussion thread with a
| title like this!
| bombcar wrote:
| I feel this page would be much more amusing if it just continued
| forever and got more and more absurd identifications of "possible
| brown recluse" as you went down.
|
| Things like https://www.oldbug.com/brownbeauty.htm and so forth.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| The /r/spiders subreddit likes to meme on all the people asking
| for things that are clearly not recluses, you can find some
| entertaining ones by using the search: (obvious cw for spiders)
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/spiders/search?q=recluse&restrict_s...
|
| and an ID chart: https://i.redd.it/avet69mnjga31.jpg
|
| And slightly off topic, but I love the "/r/geology rock
| identification guide": https://i.imgur.com/Asnut.png
| leephillips wrote:
| The "semaphores" are my favorite detail (and the lovely split
| back window). We should bring those back!
| havblue wrote:
| >got more and more absurd identifications of "possible brown
| recluse" as you went down.
|
| "If the spider has brown fur but weighs about sixty pounds, has
| a wagging tail and is licking you with its tongue, you might
| actually have discovered a labradoodle..."
| sdwr wrote:
| That would be in poor taste! These spiders are dangerous,
| identification is potentially life-saving. Not a great place to
| mix in humorous misinformation.
| bitwize wrote:
| Holy crap, that's the web as it's meant to be.
|
| I checked out the rest of the site, too, they look dead
| serious.
|
| And they still have an @earthlink.net email address!
| willhinsa wrote:
| Just make sure to include https://27bslash6.com/overdue.html !
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Nice car, but wow...70k for a bug, even a nice one with docs
| etc, seems steep.
| bitwize wrote:
| But it has crotch coolers! And it's a perfect chestnut brown!
| leephillips wrote:
| I was surprised at the low price for what seems like a
| desirable collector's item, but I know nothing about the car
| collector market.
| bombcar wrote:
| It looks like a rare type, along with perfect condition and
| original matching, so it all lines up - and that price is a
| "we'll sell when we want to" price.
| progre wrote:
| Replacement coil... Tell him he's dreaming.
| gridder wrote:
| It's brown, yes, but it's not a spyder. Bummer
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Beetle prices have risen, though, even pre-pandemic.
|
| https://bringatrailer.com/volkswagen/beetle/
|
| If this is a true split-window, it's the most rare mass-
| produced bug. I'm not sure I'd pay more than 50K for it, but
| it's definitely a rare specimen.
| pessimizer wrote:
| In my second-hand experience, the best way to identify them is a
| couple of days after the fact, when a circle of skin starts to
| turn brown and mushy.
|
| I don't know what "extremely rare" means (especially in Arkansas,
| where a brown recluse seems about as likely as any other spider),
| but I had a girlfriend and a best friend get bites the same year
| that got very ugly, especially since the girlfriend's bite was on
| her neck and was misdiagnosed the first time she saw someone for
| it.
| bachmeier wrote:
| https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/772295-overview#a6
|
| "The 2019 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison
| Control Centers recorded 790 individual exposures to brown
| recluse spiders, with 174 moderate outcomes, 24 major outcomes,
| and 0 dealths."
|
| > the best way to identify them is a couple of days after the
| fact, when a circle of skin starts to turn brown and mushy
|
| That sounds like a really bad way to identify them. I'd much
| prefer to identify them at a distance. (You may have been
| referring to understanding an existing bite, but that's
| different from the article.)
| tiagod wrote:
| > That sounds like a really bad way to identify them. I'd
| much prefer to identify them at a distance. (You may have
| been referring to understanding an existing bite, but that's
| different from the article.)
|
| I'm pretty sure they were joking
| javajosh wrote:
| This would make an actually interesting (and potentially useful)
| captcha system. "Pick the spiders without spines"..."pick the
| spiders that are only one color"...etc. Call it either "creepy
| captcha" or "creature captcha".
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| This is already a thing. Just yesterday I had to solve a
| captcha picking only horses with white legs.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Saw the headline and thought "oh here we go with the myths." I'm
| a spider and rattlesnake wrangler in my spare time and almost
| everything I know about spiders comes from one of the premier
| arachnologists in the US: Rick Vetter.
|
| And this is his site! So no myths here; just good science.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| When I occasionally want to identify a spider I see I find it a
| bit sad that you can find lots of pages with information on
| spiders that people are afraid of but not much information on
| random spiders unless they're something particularly interesting
| like orb weavers
|
| I'm not sure if there are just too many species or if just nobody
| cares?
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Well we as a species are probably more interested in whether
| it's really a tiger in the bushes that's out to get us and not
| in that tiger's family tree.
| filoeleven wrote:
| There are some variously-imperfect methods to ID things that
| you can take photos of.
|
| The Seek app by iNaturalist has pretty decent AI to identify
| plants and animals. It can limit itself to broader IDs such as
| "wasp family" if it doesn't find enough characteristics. It can
| also be wildly off sometimes in its specific IDs because it's
| image recognition.
|
| There are also loads of dedicated Facebook groups specifically
| for ID. I know that some of the plant and mushroom ones are
| very good, I suspect spider-focused groups are similarly
| enthusiastic. They can also be wildly off, with the added
| component of traded insults between different people who are
| all certain they are each correct, and the others are all
| idiots "who wouldn't know a recluse from a redback even after
| they got bit." This could be a pro or a con, depending on what
| you find entertaining.
|
| State extensions are going to be the most reliable, and will
| likely have the most info on the obscure local wildlife. I
| don't know how willing they are to ID from photos though; it
| may vary from place to place. They may want you to capture one
| and send it in.
| pvaldes wrote:
| First, count its eyes and then look for eyes arranged in an V
| pattern
|
| If you see a couple of eyes much bigger than the rest, is not a
| recluse.
|
| If you count 8 eyes, is not a recluse
|
| If the eyes are arranged in a rectangle or trapezoid, not
| recluse.
|
| If you see single eyes isolated, not recluse
|
| This list will discard the 95% of the suspicious spiders that you
| can find at home
|
| Otherwise: can be, but not necessarily, a brown recluse.
| nerdponx wrote:
| The problem I have is that, no, the spiders in my bathroom do
| not have any of these features. I don't know what kind of
| Loxosceles they are, but I am pretty sure they are some kind of
| Loxosceles. I do put them outside whenever I see them because
| they make me nervous, but they also seem to be generally
| uninterested in biting me.
|
| On the other hand, my house also seems to be home to a thriving
| Scutigera population. They eat spiders, right?
| kdkfkfkdl wrote:
| Nah step one is to look for the disqualifying features that are
| easy to see from a distance: striped legs, spines, conspicuous
| web, multicolored abdomen
|
| Step two is to run away if it's still not disqualified because
| even with the helpful photos I couldn't figure out where its
| eyes are and I'm not getting that close to an actual spider,
| ridiculous
| pvaldes wrote:
| Just use a good quality camera from a safe distance and then
| the Gimp to open the photo and cut the interesting zone.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Well, or simply use this great and very informative web...
| I'm overthinking again. Is all in the web :-)
| [deleted]
| kizer wrote:
| Brown recluse!
| [deleted]
| xipho wrote:
| @recluseornot on Twitter was run by some very good entomologists
| I know. They had to stop because of the workload. What someone
| needs to do, perhaps, is to use that corpa of images and
| responses as the start of the all-powerful AI.
|
| Better yet, have a startup fund a real-life entomologist for 2-5
| years, remote is possible, to _keep_ identifying pictures in this
| type of forum, in return for that relatively paltry sum (maybe
| 70k /year + 10k for scope + camera setup for more detailed work,
| + 15k for operating a year), you'd get a far richer dateset to
| "commercialize".
|
| Yes, I know spiders are not insects, I'm an entomologist too.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I'm down, let's do it.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| > What someone needs to do, perhaps, is to use that corpa of
| images and responses as the start of the all-powerful AI.
|
| This already exists and is pretty good at what it does. It's
| called iNaturalist. It attempts to identify all living things
| and in my experience gets about 80% there. Experts will also
| occasionally come along and more accurately ID things.
|
| On top of this, the submitted data is used for scientific
| research which is amazing!
| garren wrote:
| It looks like they're still active as of 20min ago [0]. Super
| handy account. Just scrolling through the pics gives you a much
| better sense for identifying them. I suspect I've seen one or
| two in my yard, but now I think I have a better idea of what to
| look for.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/RecluseOrNot/status/1560235560324710402
| xipho wrote:
| Great! I know there was a hiatus at one point. It's
| definitely a cool feed. I worked with one of the OPs there,
| might have to send him a PM to see what's up.
|
| Twitter via scientists can be nice. There are a good number
| of people who adhere to "just the science" and post
| interesting/beautiful things from their labs/work.
| quechimba wrote:
| I got a few spider bites in the Peruvian Amazon. The spiders look
| exactly like those recluse spiders on the photos. They are really
| fast and they can jump. The photos I found online of what recluse
| spider bites look like matched my wound that refused to heal for
| 2 months until I started taking antibiotics... Now they look like
| a small bruise.
| Yizahi wrote:
| Ugh, the article was so hard to understand, I actually had to
| read certain parts twice to get if he was talking what is a
| recluse or what isn't in that line or paragraph. I think it is a
| bad idea to interleave those definitions, and same with pictures.
| I have no objections about hard to understand objects, but this
| was probably intended as a quick emergency guide for a commoners.
| xipho wrote:
| Completely agreed. This is a common type of page associated
| with extension units. They are written by, and for those who
| are doing pest-control style work, for example. There is _much_
| room for improvement, including better diagnostic tools, clear
| choice-based keys, etc. There are actually very few people who
| can accurate diagnose these critters down to species, let alone
| "recluse". Those people depend on tools (6 eyes are very
| small), morphological knowledge, etc. There is a real need for
| new, purpose-built page whose content is provided for specific
| reasons (this is here to answer question X to audience Y via
| information I, if you use it for other things YRMV). Getting
| scientists to understand these needs is tough, they are almost
| always talking to other scientists, which is completly fine and
| necessary, but branching out is hard. A classic UI/UX problem.
| bombcar wrote:
| This clearly needs a SaaS startup (spiders as a service) and
| we can certainly use some blockchain somehow.
|
| I'm targeting $100m investments by Dec, with an IPO or ICO in
| early May at a $1b+ valuation.
| xipho wrote:
| And by blockchain you mean its true evolution, which is
| totally and completely not a blockchain/nft/loot box, at
| all, really, the "silken highway". Once you touch it,
| you're stuck, vibrations you give off as you struggle to
| unsubscribe transmit to all suckers^d others, also alerting
| the central spider-mother (from which the highway grows,
| may she never falter) who grows the inescapable network of
| sticky threads via a 5% take of your offering through her
| bit-rotting venom.
| rcurry wrote:
| This idea has legs.
| echelon wrote:
| Seems like we need an ML model for this.
|
| isthisabrownrecluse.com or something
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Now I'm concerned that someone will use this with DALL-E to
| generate an endless supply of nightmare fuel.
| schroeding wrote:
| It can already create pictures of spiders that trigger at
| least my arachnophobia alright: https://imgur.com/a/rptW29G
| [1]
|
| [1] "A real photo of a horrible, anxiety-inducing scary real
| spider that can kill humans, 55mm lens"
| dylan604 wrote:
| you mean thisbrownreclusedoesnotexist.com
|
| or it would probably work well with notahotdog
| xipho wrote:
| The ML model is an entomologists/arachnologist trained for 5+
| years, if not decades. Start training with data from
| iNaturalist, but then realize they are already using AI
| detection models, and they note they are far from accurate, and
| they don't anticipate them ever being accurate.
|
| Part of the problem is you need scopes/cameras with resolution
| for things under 2mm. People don't have those, nor the
| expertise to setup the light, etc. to take the pictures
| required to diagnose them. Then they need precise angles to
| take the shots at, etc.
|
| Not impossible, and could certainly eliminate a whole suite of
| things that are not, but at the end of the day you're going to
| need a salaried person to make the final call if you want to
| commercialize this and not get sued... I suspect.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| (this is about black widows, not brown recluses, so it may or may
| not be relevant)
|
| I had someone tell me if I went out at night with a UV pen and
| shined it underneath stuff, esp. patio furniture, I'd find lots
| of black widows.
|
| Tried it; didn't see any.
| eth0up wrote:
| I used to find black widows frequently near a melaleuca tree
| which was near my side door, in south Florida. Day and night.
| Not infrequently in the house. They always seemed passive, but
| I still ushered them outdoors.
|
| I have yet to identify a recluse with any confidence, although
| a friend of a friend lost his arm after one crawled upward from
| his hand to shoulder, biting repeatedly as it moved. I think
| delayed treatment was the ultimate cause of severity.
| tfandango wrote:
| I don't know about that, but they love wood. I find them from
| time to time in the corners of my fence. Only about one a year.
| Once I found thousands when the eggs hatched but they quickly
| dispersed. An interesting thing about Black Widows is that
| their webs are really strong and unorganized, so I usually see
| that before finding the spider, which is pretty shy.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Yeah, their webs are pretty distinctive. Besides wood piles,
| I've found them in brick piles and folded up shade umbrellas
| a lot. They seem to enjoy materials that can hold moisture
| without quite reaching the levels of "damp".
|
| Biggest I ever saw was in an umbrella while I was de-
| winterizing the pool that I worked summers at. Was
| absentmindedly going down the rows, opening up umbrellas when
| I happened to look up and shrieked. Thing's abdomen had to be
| at least an inch, maybe an inch and a half. The pool manager
| (70 yo CA native, so seen his fair share) thought I was
| exaggerating until he walked over and said it was the biggest
| he'd ever seen, too.
| jorts wrote:
| Black widows are pretty easy to find based on their webs.
| They're really messy looking.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| I would argue that if you're close enough to the point where you
| can accurately count the number of eyes, you've already made a
| terrible mistake.
| choeger wrote:
| Here's the thing: If I am in a country that harbours these
| abominations of nature and I see a suspicious spider near or even
| inside my home, I'll kill it. I'll drop the whole weight of the
| "sapiens" part of my species on that toxic creature. No quarter
| given or expected.
|
| There's something very deep inside me that tells me that beings
| with way more than the usual amount of legs are to be feared and
| I trust that part of me.
| rintakumpu wrote:
| The absolute tolerable maximum of legs is six. Two or four is
| preferred.
| solarmist wrote:
| Just recently, there was a super interesting reddit thread about
| a brown recluse bite and the healing process.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wqawcb/m...
| ezekg wrote:
| I recently killed a brown recluse that snuggled up in one my
| daughter's shoes in the back of her closet.
|
| Seeing that makes me want to go check her other shoes lol.
| giardini wrote:
| Tell your daughter what you found and she'll do the checking!
| ezekg wrote:
| She's 3, so she oscillates between "I wanna squish it!" to
| "AHHHHHH kill it now!!!!" depending on the day. :)
| aftbit wrote:
| > You won't be able to tell what it is (and please don't send
| them to me for identification because due to shift in the
| California economy, I no longer provide these services) but you
| will at least know that it is not a recluse spider.
|
| I wonder what the author is referring to.
| pvaldes wrote:
| taxonomy and their best friend poverty, probably
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| Could also be AB5 restricting how independent operators are
| allowed to contract out their services. It's been a big fuss
| in the trucking industry.
| ben_w wrote:
| Probably not.
|
| The page says it was updated January 2005; the only things
| I know about AB5 are from Wikipedia, which says signed into
| law 2019-09-18?
| syntaxing wrote:
| I find it interesting how the recluse map is pointing to a
| wayback archive rather than a direct host through their site.
| bergenty wrote:
| I live in a place with brown recluses and have been trying to
| find one for more than three years with no luck. It's really
| living up to its name.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| It's fairly common for a family in recluse country to discover
| a nest of hundreds of them behind the headboard of their bed
| that has been there for years, and yet nobody ever got bitten.
| blakewatson wrote:
| Excuse me while I try to unread this.
| voidfunc wrote:
| This is fucking nightmare fuel. I'd burn the house down and
| I'm not even particularly bothered by spiders usually
| choeger wrote:
| I'd raze the whole town.
| gennarro wrote:
| Check map. I'm good. Instantly close article. No thanks on
| anything spiders.
| flobosg wrote:
| As someone who had to identify Chilean recluses ( _Loxosceles
| laeta_ , arguably the most dangerous one), I think that lack of
| spines and walking speed (they can be quite fast) are the most
| frequent criteria I've used to check them.
| elmer007 wrote:
| When advice regarding a spider is along the lines of "don't look
| at it from above, get down and gaze into its eyes," that's when I
| draw the line.
|
| It can't bite me if it's flat.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Wasn't it _Animal Farm_ where the animals say "Four legs good;
| eight legs bad" ?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-19 23:00 UTC)