In fact, the professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville under
whom I studied biochemistry move here precisely because he was studying the
venom of the brown recluse, and geographically we truly are almost at the
center of a large area in which they are found. He would send out 'spider
teams' to likely sites, collecting sometimes hundreds of spiders in a single
evening. He has a fascinating lecture on them (and in fact, on insect venoms
in general). He was (and I suppose still is) in great demand when doctors were
trying to confirm a brown recluse bite, because he could positively tell from
even very small fragments (which was what was usually left of the spider if
the victim saw or felt it) if a spider was or wasn't a brown recluse.
He and his students spent years studying the necrosis which Dale described
(in wonderfully explicit and gory detail) to determine the cause and attempt
to develop better treatment that the steroids, painkillers, and often surgery
that Dale endured. Interestingly, they had difficulty finding a lab animal
that reacted with a necrosis. Rats are apparently immune to brown recluse
venom, and mice showed little reaction up to the point at which they died
without ever developing a necrosis. He believes that many humans do not react
to brown recluse venom with a necrosis (only the unlucky ones!) and I'd have
to agree. Both my grandmother and my wife have been bitten by brown recluses.
My grandmother developed a very small necrosis (less than 10 mm diameter), and
my wife none at all. There may be a much larger number of people bitten each
year in this area than are reported, because those of us who do not react may
not even notice the bite.
Brown recluses are hunters, rather than web builders (they can spin but seldom
do), and love warm, dry places, like stacked cloth or clothing, attics, etc.
A large one, perhaps 3 years old, may have a leg span about the diameter of a
silver dollar. We've seen them live in the bottom of an open jar, in which
they became trapped, for several months without food or water. Most people who
are bitten are bitten because they exert pressure on the spider without seeing
it - just as Dale describes moving the clothing with his body. (They know a
person is too large to eat and will usually not bite if left alone. My former
teacher has had one walk the length of his body, inside his clothing, without
biting.)
Unfortunately, they did not come up with any improvement in treatment, partly
because (again, as Dale describes), most people do not know they've been
bitten for some time. (My wife didn't realize she had been bitten by a brown
recluse which crawled into bed with her until the following morning, when her
arm was slightly swollen. Since she didn't develop a necrosis, she needed only
a steroid injection, was never in severe discomfort, and was quite recovered
within a few days.)
Having known several brown recluse victims who went through the entire grisly
scenario Dale covered, he has my most sincere sympathy.
Steve
SAMARAK@UAFSYSB.BITNET or SAMARAK@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU