The Cat Always Knows: Brown Recluse #1, 2009

Earlier tonight Loretta the cat was lying on top of Hugh's dresser, near where her food and water dishes are. I took her water to fill, and when I came back with the full glass, she was staring down at the floor to the side, at the base of the lamp. She sees all and knows all. She really does. The cats always do. If they are staring interestedly at something, it is bound to be a brown recluse or a scorpion. How do they know not to mess with them? Because they don't...they just watch.


A closeup of its 3 pairs of eyes, and its small pedipalps. Is it a female?






Note also that abdomen; are they always so large, dare I say swollen? Is it a female about to have a bunch of spider babies? One tidbit I have learned about recluses is that they are hunters, so don't build webs to catch prey; but they do build webs to have babies in. On. Whatever.

I Present Exhibit 1

This is the largest of the little brown recluse mummies.


Family photo

Teacup Full of Brown Recluses

This is a TEACUP full of DEAD BROWN RECLUSES that was IN MY KITCHEN CUPBOARD. Hugh found it today. There are some other photos but I am just too tired and too appalled to write anything else about this right now. This says it all anyway, I think.

Have a Very Brown Recluse Day! or Night, Actually: I Present to You At the Cabin's 9th Recluse of 2008.

Found in our little office room last night. Hugh was working at his desk; I had been making Cornish pasties in the kitchen. I needed to get into the office and sleeping dogs were in the way, so I moved a floor lamp to get by and underneath was this guy. He was perilously close to dog feet; perilous for recluse and dogs alike. He is very large—definitely rivaling 2008's recluse #8 for biggest yet. It's been 3 months since then with no more sightings till now. Sigh. I had hoped it might be over.


Pedipalps




His little head


Here's looking at you, kid

Holy Mother of God, the Most Giant Recluse of Them All

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the 8th brown recluse of 2008 At the Cabin:


This spider escaped me in the bedroom earlier; I just came across it again and SCARPed it and my oh my, it is THE BIGGEST brown recluse I have yet seen. Great googley moogley. My. My, my, my. It appears to be dusted all over with a fine crystalline powder. And what is up with the hairy legs? At least, hairy upper thighs? Recluses do not have spines on their legs, but I guess that does not count hairs, because I see some here, and I see the eyes, and I see the fiddle. It's a recluse, all right.

Brown Recluses 2008: Nos. 6 & 7 (!)

These photos are of 2008 Brown Recluse #7, found last night in the bathroom on the floor behind the trash can. He did not want to be seen or found or bothered (as they are reclusive, you know). He was released this morning behind our well house. The photo above is the best I've taken of their eyes, I think! And you can see the handsome pedipalps. Pedipalps are enlarged in a male, but if you don't know what size unenlarged pedipalps are, it doesn't help much with male/female identification.


I am sorry to say that 2008 Brown Recluse #6 was inadvertently killed while I was scooping him into the catch-and-release container. I had noticed Loretta Cat watching something behind her sleeping area; I went to see what she was looking at and found a recluse stalking a june bug. I am sorry that it was killed; it was not my intent. I saved its body and took some pictures but they are not very nice or interesting to look at after all, so I shan't post them.

So after catching him/her/#7 last night, I dreamed that I was bitten on the armpit from rolling over on a brown recluse during the night. It does seem to have been only a dream, for which I am glad.

Brown Recluse Haiku

1.
Little Brown Recluse,
Why are you in my kitchen?
You're not so little.

2.
Little Brown Recluse,
Why are you in my bathtub?
You're not wanted here.

3.
Little Brown Recluse,
Why are you in my bedroom?
This is so not right.

Brown Recluses 2008: #5

Found behind/under the dustpan which is kept by the cat box IN THE BEDROOM, Wednesday June 25th, as I rushed around that morning gathering trash and cleaning out litter boxes as part of that activity. I'm not happy with them anywhere, but I'm even less happy with them in the bedroom. But we continue our policy of displacement rather than death.


My wonderful new spider book says that male spiders have larger pedipalps (the things right in front of their heads that look like a tiny pair of legs) than females. So is this a male? He sure is big.

Brown Recluses 2008: The Real No. 4

Found in the bathtub Wednesday morning, June 11th. I begin to think that under our (built-in) tub and kitchen cabinets is a seething mass of a nest of brown recluses. OK, well, I do not begin to think this—I have been thinking so for a while now.


So they're not my greatest recluse photos ever....but one senses that I may have more opportunities in future.

Brown Recluses 2008: Nos. 4 and 5....Or Just No. 3, As It Turns Out

What I wrote this morning:
Argh. Eff. This is really becoming quite disconcerting. I found another brown recluse in the sink today. It's tiny, but so what? I started wondering why I've found two of them in the sink and looked up at the cupboard over the sink, the one that is hardly ever opened. I have already had visions, or daymares if you will, of checking underneath the bottom drawers under the counters, of pulling them out to find recluse farms below. So I got the stepstool, placed it well away from the counter, climbed up, and carefully opened the cupboard to find...another recluse, a big one. At least it wasn't a whole farm of them. I need advice. And I need to import lots of jumping spiders, a natural predator of the brown recluse.

A photo of today's brown recluse:


What I've learned since then:
The big spider (in the first photo in this post, above) in the cupboard above the sink WAS a recluse, but the little guy in the sink (photos below) was not, nor was the spider in the post of 5.20.2008. Why? Today's photos show that this spider has spines on its legs, which recluses do not have, and the spider in the earlier post is the same kind as today's little one (obviously the same kind to the naked eye, if not so obvious in the pics). Which means we've had only three recluses this year, and not five. Small comfort, some might say, but I will take what comfort I can. See next post for what else I've learned about brown recluses!

A photo of today's other spider that is NOT a brown recluse, and which I've since learned is a striped lynx spider, Oxyopes salticus Hentz:

So, by the way, this is another really good reason not to kill any spider, even one you think is dangerous, because you might be wrong. Even the dangerous ones don't want to hurt you, or even be near you; they just want to live their little spider lives. So don't kill—just remove from human vicinity, if necessary.


I include this poorer photo because I like how it looks as though the little spider is wearing boxing gloves

Another Brown Recluse AND a Flat Tire are TOO DANG MUCH for One Single Day

The brown recluse at the start of the day, found in a kitchen cabinet this morning as I put away clean dishes from the dishwasher. This is starting to get a little bit old (though I do think this is one of my best recluse photos to date).


Another fun spider & shadow photo


The flat tire came at the end of the day and was much less melodramatic (though much grimier). I did not take pictures; we've all seen a flat tire.

A Brown Recluse?

Please see the post of 5.28.2008 for an update to the post below!


Is this spider (above) a brown recluse? (And don't you utterly dig its reflection a la deep-space science fiction movie white glowiness?) It is certain that the spider immediately below IS a brown recluse.




Here is the first one again, this time with the penny; it is much, much smaller than the other two recluses that have been found in our house. This one was in the WC on May 6th, about 5 o'clock in the morning, on the wall.


Yes or no?


This is a terrible photo and yet I love it because of its deep-space science fiction movie white glowiness, and therefore it's included. It provides a nice spider-to-penny aspect, as well.

Brown Recluse In The Biscuit Bowl!

Or, A Saturday Morning Adventure

The day began with excitement when, after deciding to make biscuits to take to Jack's ranch- and barnwarming, I opened the baking drawer to pull out a bowl and found a brown recluse therein. A big one. She's currently in the SCARP container in the kitchen sink, waiting for one of us to get dressed and take her down the hill to the wilderness below to be set free.


A poor photo but the only one which shows one of its identifying features: its three pairs of eyes

The Brown Recluse: Part II

No more photos; I just forgot to comment earlier on the fact that the brown recluse has only six legs. Also in the tub were two daddy longlegs (frequent tub habitues); they were hanging around one of the spa jets on the other side of the tub from the little recluse. Those daddy longlegs prey on many insects. Was it they? Did they do this to him??

The Brown Recluse

Or, Terror in the Tub!

Spiders are always getting trapped in our giant bathtub and I repeatedly step in and scoop them out with a newspaper or magazine or whatever else might be handy. Saturday morning I did that with this guy and only after I'd deposited him on the stones of the tub surround did it occur to me to wonder if it was a BROWN RECLUSE. I hurriedly grabbed a candle holder and trapped him beneath it.

It was hours later (because of the cat Hamilton and the baby mouse he'd brought into the bedroom that required saving, which required a trip to Wildlife Rescue, though other details shall not be gone into now) that I remembered the spider and went back to get him, with a secure container with lid at hand. He was still under the candle holder and in no time I had him. Now that I could see him more clearly, I looked him up and sure enough, he was the Recluse that I had suspected him to be.

It was the long, thin, somewhat pale legs that clued me in. It is only now that I've seen one live that I understand what is meant by the violin-shaped marking on the back, though I learned that that mark is sometimes faded or nonexistent. On this fellow it is very clear. I also learned a better identifier: unlike most U.S. spiders which have eight eyes, recluses have six, and they are set in three pairs. This website was the one I found most helpful identification: http://dermatology.cdlib.org/DOJvol5num2/special/recluse.html.

After we'd looked at him a while and had the photo shoot, then Hugh took him far, far down the hill to beyond the campsite and set him free.