Dangerous Brown Recluse Spider May Be Wintering In Michigan

Arachnids not normally found in Michigan are showing up across the state, the latest instances involving dangerous brown recluse spiders found in a garage in the Genesee County community of Davison and in a home in Perry, located in Shiawassee County. Spiders not indigenous to Michigan often hitch a ride to the state in crates and fruit and vegetable shipments, but what’s significant is that they may be taking up residence in the state, despite Michigan’s typically cold winters, according to a Michigan State University entomologist.

In April, a Flint family found two quarter-sized brown recluse spiders living in their unheated garage. The past winter was mild, but Howard Russell, the entomologist with MSU’s Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, still scratched his head over the spiders’ hardiness. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

They’re typically found in southern states, and finding brown recluse spiders in Michigan is “rare,” Russell told CBS News in April. He said their appearance in Michigan raises an “interesting question research-wise.”

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“Do these represent sort of a transported population or does this represent the leading edge of a spread of these things to the Midwest?” he asked at the time.

Now, Russell wonders how many other brown recluse spiders wintered in Michigan, he told the Detroit Free Press. Knowing how prevalent they are is important, he said, because brown recluse spiders are one of only two poisonous arachnid species in the United States. The other is the black widow spider.

Don’t fret about seeing a couple of the brown recluse spiders, the self-described “bug man” advises. They sound scarier than they are and are naturally shy — hence, the common name “recluse.”

“Down South, where the spider is common, people can live with hundreds of these things in their homes,” he told the Free Press.

Most people who are bitten by a brown recluse spider will itch, and the area around the bite may blister. In extreme cases, skin around the bite can die, a condition that can be life-threatening.

Russell wants to hear from people who have seen spiders they think may be brown recluses — they can be either light or medium brown, and have a violin-shaped marking on their cephalothorax (the part of the body where the legs attach). He can be reached at bugman@msu.edu.

Late last month, a Macomb County mom found a gigantic huntsman spider, indigenous to Australia but common in some of the subtropical regions of the United States, in her toddler’s bedroom. Though among the largest of spider species, huntsmans aren’t particularly dangerous. The Huntsman spider is relatively harmless, though some who are bitten may suffer an allergic reaction to venom. A bite feels a little like a bee sting, experts say.

Photo by Mike Keeling via Flickr Commons