# Spider question



## Mark-n-Fish (Dec 21, 2004)

Here is one for all you entomologists out there. My son captured and is feeding/raising a large spider he caught in the Jackson area. Sorry I don't know the species. The spider has repetedly laid eggs and we have disposed of them for fear the young would get out of the cage habitat. My question is it possible for these eggs to be fertile with no male present. I have heard some animals can be bred 1 time and store sperm for a long time to fertilize their eggs.
Mark


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## Bonz 54 (Apr 17, 2005)

Yes, absolutely. Many animals and Insects only need to breed once in their lifetime to reproduce. I'd be careful with that Spider. Has he checked the specises yet? If it is a Brown Recluse the bite might not be fatal but it is very bad. FRANK


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## M1Garand (Apr 12, 2006)

Sounds to me like either a wolf spider species or funnel web. If memory serves me correctly, the brown recluse has only been recorded here twice and they hitched rides. The easiest way to tell them is they have a violin shaped mark on their back. Yours most likely has already bred.


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## Radar420 (Oct 7, 2004)

M1Garand said:


> If memory serves me correctly, the brown recluse has only been recorded here twice and they hitched rides. The easiest way to tell them is they have a violin shaped mark on their back.


I'm not sure M1, but I think the Brown Recluse is more prevalent in Michigan now. We have a neighbor up north who is a farmer/builder. Within the last five years he has suffered no less than 8 spider bites from what the doctors say is a brown recluse. I've never seen the spider, but I have seen his wounds and they look pretty bad - affected areas doubling in size and necrosis around the bite. He even had a bite where the doctor removed the infected area and when he was done he could stick his pinky in the hole. In his most recent bout he was working in his barn and suffered 3 bites in one day. He ended up going to emergency, got a staph infection, and has to have a nurse stop by twice a day to clean his wounds and change his dressings.


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## Bachflock (Jul 3, 2007)

Interesting news on the brown recluse - I'll have to check it out. I agree with M1, the recluse hasn't been a native to Michigan in the past... winters to cold. However, with the warming issue people claim is going on I suppose its possibel the species could move north. A friend of mine was bit by a brown recluse up in Mason County but the tent had been used the week before down in Tennesee on a camping trip. Anything is possible.


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## Ray Duve (Jun 26, 2004)

The recluse is more common here than you may think.A friend of mine was bitten by one at work years ago and lost a portion of is leg and still has problems to this day from it. Keep in mind that the recluse takes up residence in you home so Michigan weather is not much of a factor if it need not exit the house for food.


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## shadow (Feb 14, 2005)

on the brown recleuse topic, they have a relative prevalant in MI who can look similar and also cause necrotic lesions but not so severe. the yellow sac spider, do a search for more info. 

ive been bitten with no ill effects but my sister was bitten on the collar bone area and had a dime sized nasty hole for a good month!


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## M1Garand (Apr 12, 2006)

You guys had me wondering so I did a quick search. This is direct from the DNR website on the brown recluse:

_Because the brown recluse cannot live in temperatures below 40°F, Michigan is not high on its list of vacation hotspots. In fact, the brown recluse is extremely rare in Michigan, having been documented here only once. In this case the spiders were found in a heated building and were probably introduced in materials shipped from the southern United States. _

Here's the link if anyone wants to read the rest:

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12145_12204-36491--,00.html


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## Mark-n-Fish (Dec 21, 2004)

Thanks for the replies. I don't believe it to be a brown recluse or a yellow sac. The spider's abdomen is not skinny but rather bulbous or pea shaped and is the size of my pinky finger nail. It is brown and not furry. With the legs outstretched it could easily be as wide as a half dollar.
Mark


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## M1Garand (Apr 12, 2006)

Can you post a pic?


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## Mark-n-Fish (Dec 21, 2004)

I will try to do that.


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## Bachflock (Jul 3, 2007)

Brown Recluse, no, but cougars? Still a maybe! LOL I suppose anything is possible.


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## catch&release (Jan 17, 2004)

Yellow sac spider

Are the yellow sac spiders the small, yellow ones that are in a lot of houses? I've had those in every house I've ever lived in.

Ouch. Hope they're not!


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## Banditto (Jun 9, 2000)

My house is seasonally full of yellow sac spiders. Near the first frost it is common to kill 8-10 a day. When I pulled open an exterior wall to work on the bathroom and pulled out the blown-in insulation I found it full of larger than normal yellow sac spiders. Kinda odd, this is between plaster and the exterior brick... so how they got in and out is a mystery.

Now several years ago I picked up a christmas box in the basement and sandwiched a spider between my wrist and the box as I lifted it. Well all I felt was a pinch and thought it was the box. Then I put the box down and down drops this spider which I kept in a jar. Pulled up pictures and it looked exactly like a brown recluse just smaller. So I called poison control and they verified by my verbal description that it could be a recluse but due to the size it would not have enough venom to do anything significant. That bite burned like fire for 3 days even with benedryl.

I took that same box outside and shook it outside and a much larger spider plopped out. I threw the box and its contents in the garbage that week.


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## eddiejohn4 (Dec 23, 2005)

The recluse is not prevalent in michigan , many spideres are mis idenified as such. a recluse not only has a violin marking but has six pairs of eyes instead of the usual eight as other spider groups. necrotizing fasciitis can be caused by an alergic responce to many insects. or bacteria introduced by bites from many insects. Fasciitis is usually why many lose limbs or sections of tissue.


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## MERGANZER (Aug 24, 2006)

My Dad was bitten by a recluse that was hiding in his boot in the winter time back in the 1970's. He had to have the affected area removed as well in the emergency room. They are more common here than people think. It is the Black Widow that gets here occasionally through hitchhiking.

Ganzer


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## jcurtis (Oct 11, 2004)

and people wonder why I don't like spiders


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## Radar420 (Oct 7, 2004)

In another instance, I have an aunt who lives in East Tawas. She was having her roof torn off or something like that and the guy who came out to do the quote said they weren't going to do anything until she took care of the spiders living in her attic because they were brown recluses.

Now, I've never seen the offending spider in either of the instance I've posted about on here nor do I find much info on the recluse in Michigan when I'm searching, other than people's own experiences, so I can't say definitively that it was a recluse, I'm just relaying what I've heard/been told as a precaution. I do know that the farmer's bites/lesions do look exactly like the ones I find when I do a search for recluse spider bites. 

Neither my aunt nor this farmer have been out of the state in many years.


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## fasthunter (Sep 15, 2006)

I got bit by a spider a couple of weeks ago. It's not a brown recluse because I know the symtoms of there venomous bite. I actually knew a guy in Georgia that got bit by one a few times. (Nest under his bed and didnt' know it. ) He had alot of medical problems and most definite skin and flesh issues:SHOCKED:. 
I do have a question if someone knows the answer though. I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but it's very related. I got bit by a spider in my sleep a couple of weeks ago. I know this because I had three welts on my chest with fang marks perfectly spaced apart. About a quarter inch apart on the fang bite to be exact. The next day my woman killed a big wolf spider in the bathroon. (I was bit in my sleep.) I know Wolf Spiders aren't normally aggressive, but I think it's what bit me. I'm not getting recluse symtoms, but my chest has been itching for a couple of weeks and it's breaking out in a rash now. Is that normal for a wolf spider?? I'm just trying to figure out what kind it was if possible. I've had spider bite welts before, but this itches and it's kind of annoying.


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## eddiejohn4 (Dec 23, 2005)

Any insect can cause an alergic reaction, and any insect can introduce bacteria that can cause necrotizing faciitis. I have seen no real accounts anywhere that I have researched that have idenified a problem with brown recluses in Michigan. If you really want to identify check the eyes as there are 6 sets instead of 8.

If any on here finds one please take a close up of the eyes and post it . I would like to know if they are indeed here.


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