Boxes and other items stored for long periods of time are ready harborages for brown recluse. The importance of eliminating clutter from the structure cannot be overemphasized. Typical hiding places include garages, crawlspaces, attics, wall voids, cracks and voids around fireplaces, cabinets, furniture, boxes and stored goods. One valuable method is to deny the spiders access to hiding places. Management plans employing only one means of control, such as spraying baseboards, will fail. Successful brown recluse control requires an integrated management plan that utilizes several control methods. Even when exposed, brown recluse are fast runners and difficult to catch with a vacuum cleaner, fly swatter or shoe. Though hundreds of brown recluse may be present in a house, they may not be easily observed because of their reclusive, nocturnal habits. Once established within a structure, brown recluse are often difficult to control. The need to inspect items before moving them in is clear. Thus, a single female hitchhiking into a structure is all it takes to establish an infestation. What’s more, a female brown recluse needs to mate only once to produce eggs throughout her life, and can produce 150 or more spiderlings in a year. They are long-lived, can go for many months without eating, and are adapted to the hot, dry conditions found in many structures. The spiders are well-adapted for establishing themselves by hitchhiking. Most structures become infested when brown recluse “hitchhike” indoors on furniture, boxes and other items from infested structures. Moreover, brown recluse do not “balloon,” that is, they do not use silk strands to disperse by wind as other spiders do. Most infested structures did not become so by brown recluse traveling over land from one house to another. They are not often found far from structures. They are fond of building their retreats and resting on wooden surfaces, such as inside furniture, cardboard boxes, wall voids and in the wood framing of crawlspaces, basements and attics. During the day they rest in hidden locations within the structures they infest. While females build flat, sheet-like webs, or “retreats,” that may help them capture prey, the brown recluse should be thought of as a hunting spider because males, in particular, roam in search of prey.īrown recluse are most active at night. Note also that the legs of brown recluse are not spiny or banded like those of many spiders it is often confused with. Unlike most spiders which have eight eyes, brown recluse spiders have six eyes arranged in three pairs. An even more important identifier is the number and arrangement of the eyes. This mark helps identify the spider, though it develops as the spider does and is not present in young brown recluses. The body of an adult brown recluse is light brown, except for a darker, violin-shaped marking on the back, immediately behind its eyes. True to its name, the brown recluse is both brown and reclusive. variolus) which is replaced in the Southwest by the western black widow ( L. Most common in northern states such as Illinois is the northern black widow ( L. The black widow ( Latrodectus mactans) inhabits the southern half of the country. Three species of black widow spiders are widespread in the United States. But the brown recluse ( Loxosceles reclusa) occurs in roughly the southeastern quarter of the country, and is by far the most common and widespread of the brown spiders. Several species of brown spiders, also known as violin or fiddle-back spiders, inhabit the southwestern United States. Those species fall into two groups, the brown spiders ( Loxosceles spp.) and the widow spiders ( Latrodectus spp.). Of the more than 3,700 species of spiders in the United States, only about a dozen are considered medically important. Brown Recluse Spider Brown Recluse and Black Widow Spiders
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