Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi guys!

I'm new to this forum, but I'm hoping you all can lend me some expert opinions. I work at a science museum where I play with spiders a lot. Some of my employees bring me weird looking spiders that they find around their houses, just because I like to see knew kinds of spiders. Someone brought me a spider today that bears a striking resemblance to a brown recluse. The marking on the carapace is more of a triangle than a fiddle shape, but the pedipalps have large bulbs on the end like a lot of the pictures I've seen. It's legspan is about the size of a quarter and it's body is about 3/8 inch. Is anybody familiar with brown recluse or native ohio spiders that can help me identify this little guy? Thanks

Here are some links to good Brown recluse informational resources. I can't say definitively if it is or isn't a recluse without a picture, so here are some pictures for you to look at. Let me know if your spider matches any of these:

Recluse and some of its look alikes:

http://dermatology.cdlib.org/DOJvol5num2/special/recluse.html

Brown recluse informational resources ( with pics ):

http://www.spiders.com/info/topic.jsp?id=6

http://www.oedb.org/category.asp?cat=13

http://www.arachnology.org/Arachnology/Pages/Reclusa.html

I'd especially like it if you could take a look at the Chilean recluse pictured in this site, as the "violin" marking in this species does resemble an elongate triangle:

http://doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp/ento/venomousspiders.htm

Please let me know if any of these resembles your spider, or if not, contrast your spider with what you've seen above. Or, if possible, a picture of your mystery creature would be even more helpful!

Hey, thanks for the websites. Judging by the picture of the Chilean Recluse you told me to look at, it does look quite similar. But looking more closely at the eyes, I don't think it is. It's got more of a two group eye pattern than the normal three sets like the recluse. I wish I could get a good picture, but my camera sucks! Anyway, thank you so much for the information, it really helped!