The brown recluse spider is a mere one-quarter to one-half inch long.
Saturday, 6 a.m. Seven-year-old Shawn Meyer began to shuffle sleepily toward his mother's bed. Crawling in beside Mom would make his leg stop hurting, Shawn thought. But by his second step, he knew he couldn't make it.
Shawn screamed for his mother. What Mary Jane Meyer saw frightened her. From knee to ankle, her son's leg was swollen. Just below his calf she noticed a small, white, slightly raised circle, and in its center, a tiny dot -- a puncture?
An irregular, brown outer circle reached out in all directions like a rotting, broken egg.
Tuesday, 10 a.m. To the bed-bound older gentleman in St. Petersburg, feeling bad was nothing new. His kidneys had been failing for a year. Mornings were the best part of the day, when his wife of 53 years would gently massage his feet and legs.
But Beverly Shircliffe was worried. Yesterday she had noticed a tiny white area on her husband's ankle, a mosquito bite, they thought it was -- but during the night had come a sudden fever, chills and drenching sweat.
By morning, Alexander "Brown" Shircliffe's foot was throbbing and swollen. And the center of the "bite zone" was gone. It seemed as if a quarter-inch circle had been liquefied and removed, leaving only an empty crater of blackened tissue -- and the malevolent red-brown halo flowing irregularly away from the white mound.
Friday, 9 p.m. For Carolyn Gier, a recent transplant to Clearwater from the suburbs of Kansas City, one glance at the brownish aureole forming on her arm told her what she needed to know. That morning she had been unpacking a box of linen stored since her move. As she was digging into the box, she had felt a tiny, dart-like sting.
Twelve hours later, with her arm beginning to pound, she packed it in ice and headed for the emergency room. In Kansas, as in much of the Mississippi Valley, the symptoms of a Loxosceles reclusa, or brown recluse, spider bite had become all too familiar.
Spider and insect bites are not required to be reported as true poisonings, so definitive numbers are hard to come by.
But at the Florida Poison Information Center at Tampa General Hospital, the number of calls about brown recluse spider bites jumped from "five or six" in January, February and March to "12 or 13" in April and May, according to registered nurse JoAnn Chambers-Emerson.
At the Pediatric Health Alliance, a St. Petersburg pediatric office, nurses have begun to keep a scratch tally of "brown spider" bites brought in this spring, reporting, they say, "many more than we've ever seen before."
And, according to Shawn Meyer's mother, when one of the doctors at Bayfront saw her son's leg, he groaned, "Not again! This is the third brown recluse this week!"
Brown recluse spiders are shy, secretive, private. Choosing a dark, cramped indoor space -- an attic, a crawl space between floors, corners of closets or, as Carolyn Gier may have discovered, a packing box of stored linen -- provides the recluse with protection.
Only 1/4- to 1/2-inch long, fawn or medium brown with a distinctive dark, violin-shaped pattern on its back, the brown recluse usually retreats when disturbed. They tend to be more active from the spring through the fall, seeking mates and hunting for other insects.
Often people are is bitten at night, only after the spider finds itself trapped against skin in bed linens or when stored clothing is put on at a change of seasons. These characteristics are shared by at least two other spiders found in Florida -- the false wolf spider and the tiny yellow sac spider, which, writes Liberty Hodge of the Pinellas County Extension Service, "may be responsible for biting people more than any other venomous spider."
Once the spider bites, the tissue- and blood cell-destroying components of the venom begin to act quickly.
Children and vulnerable people, such as Alex Shircliffe, are most likely to experience severe reactions, but anyone who is sensitive or allergic to the venom is at risk. The site of the bite is important. Bites near bone or into muscle may become less inflamed than those directly into fat. A Missouri woman whose bite occurred in the soft underarm area endured seven operations to remove dying tissue. Her arm was left a quilted patchwork of scars.
Dr. Vincent Hayes, of Kansas University Hospital, says he sees five to six brown recluse bites a week. "The Mississippi Valley and its surrounding states, especially Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas, are hotbeds of brown recluse activity -- but their territory may be extending."
Knowing that the recluse prefers dry, warm environments, he wonders how the drought stretching across the southeastern United States will affect the extension of this spider's range. Most true brown recluse spiders have been inadvertent stowaways, transplanted from the middle Southern states into Florida, but an arid climate may be an invitation to stay and start a family.
"Yes, I've heard about the increase in brown recluse bites," says Dr. G.B. Edwards, an entomologist at the University of Florida, "but there really are no identified resident colonies in the state. I'd put my money instead on another of several necrosing spiders -- try the false wolf spider, the yellow sac spider or even the hobo spider."
Dr. William Kern, urban wildlife specialist at the Pinellas County Cooperative Extension Service, agrees. "The bite of the false wolf spider can be just as severe as that of the brown recluse -- and this one is a true Florida native."
A wanderer of the forest floor, the false wolf spider is light brown to gray, with thin, delicate legs. These spiders usually are found next to moist wooded areas or in wood piles.
"False wolf spiders are particularly nasty in that they seem to combine the brown recluse's ability to destroy flesh with systemic reactions such as muscular weakness, dizziness, disorientation and visual disturbances."
Chambers-Emerson agrees that necrotic arachnidism, or flesh destruction from a spider bite, can be caused by several kinds of spiders.
"It's just that medical professionals are familiar with the brown recluse and tend to label all bites as such," she says. "The only way to make a positive identification is to bring the spider in -- and, frankly, we don't recommend people digging around in the place they were just bitten to find what bit them!"
So, how to defend ourselves? How to keep the "Charlottes" in and the flesh-eaters out? The answer is good sense and good housekeeping.
Clean out old piles of wood or rubbish near the house. Cut back shrubbery and branches that drape onto the house. Clean out the cluttered corners of closets and garages. When you handle stored clothing or linen, watch what you're doing and where your hands go; avoid reaching into dark recesses.
Repair any broken or loose entry points and do not sleep with unscreened, open windows. Vacuum any spiders you see inside the house. The sprays and powders used to control roaches are ineffective against spiders; the best control may be that offered by a good, strong vacuum wand.
Saturday, 10 a.m. In his front yard in St. Petersburg, Shawn Meyer plays soccer with his friends. His little legs run and punt the ball into the waving arms of a goalie. Some five weeks after his spider bite, only a faint discoloration remains on his calf. Antibiotics, painkillers and icy compresses helped him return to school a few days after his bite, but Shawn still likes to sleep next to his mother at night.
Tuesday, 1 p.m. Beverly Shircliffe believes that whatever bit her husband came out of the piles of cut branches at the house next door. She plans to reinforce the weather stripping on her windows and never leaves outside doors ajar. Alex's doctors would have considered Dapsone, sometimes used in the treatment of leprosy, if their patient's necrosing ulcer hadn't improved on antibiotics. But today, with a brownish blotch still visible on his ankle, Alex smiles quietly and thankfully as his wife massages his legs.
Friday, 9 p.m. Carolyn Gier's bite began to heal quickly once she began taking medication, and she has adopted a philosophical attitude about the fauna she may have imported from her home state. Now, here, just as in Kansas, "I shake my shoes before stepping into them; I run a hand vacuum over the sheets before I go to bed." And she sheepishly admits, "The box of linen I'd brought from Kansas? It went into the Dumpster -- along with two other boxes of winter clothes, just in case ... "
-- Marina Brown is a Hospice nurse and a freelance writer. If you think a dangerous spider has bitten you. . . . Reduce swelling by applying an ice pack or alcohol to the bite area. Elevate and loosely immobilize the extremity. If you can do so safely, collect the spider that bit you. Look for systemic reactions or local swelling and changes in color at the bite site, which may suggest necroses or secondary infection. Contact your doctor or the Florida Poison Information Center at (813) 251-7044 or (800) 282-3171.
