- Author: Rick Vetter
If you were to ask an audience of more than a few people if they or anyone they know has ever seen or been bitten by a brown recluse spider in California, many hands would be raised. This is quite remarkable because the brown recluse spider has NEVER established breeding populations in California!
The myth of the brown recluse has been generated and sustained by:
- Physician misdiagnoses (where many skin lesions of diverse non-spider origin are blamed on a non-existent spider)
- Media articles that report claims of horrendous bite injury without proof of spider involvement
- Misidentification of harmless brown spiders as brown recluses by the general public as well as "authorities" who lack...
- Author: Karey Windbiel-Rojas
No we aren't here to tell you we found one. Because brown recluse spiders do not live in California.
Don't believe this last statement? Then please read the recently updated publication Pest Notes: Brown Recluse and Other Recluse Spiders by UC Riverside spider expert Richard S. Vetter.
Brown recluse spiders are among the most talked about spiders in California and one that many other brown spiders from different and non-threatening groups get confused with. But there are actually no populations of brown recluse spiders in California.
We encourage all our subscribers to read the