10 Jun
2008
10 Jun
'08
7:25 a.m.
friend got bit in Florida. About the same time his
aunt got bit in Long Island...I would't count on there
being many places they couldn't pop up...
--- Eric J Korpela <korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu> wrote:
On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 1:07 PM,
<tiggerlasv at aim.com> wrote:
> Thank your lucky stars that you didn't suffer the
fate of one of our
> customers several years ago. He'd pulled
out his
Zorba from storage,
> opened the door of the A: drive and was
bitten by
several irritated
> brown recluse spiders that had decided to
call
his luggable "home".
Kind of odd that he was bitten by "several"
spiders,
merely by opening a disk drive door. Recluses
aren't
at all aggressive, and generally don't go out
of
their way to attack.
It seems highly unsual that they would
"charge out
in numbers",
and bite. But, anything is possible.
Did they manage to salvage his hand?
(See link showing pictures of what a SINGLE bite
will do.
Note: These pictures are VERY graphic.)
I didn't see the initial post on this one, but I
would also be
surprised because recluses do tend to be very
reclusive. The natural
response to opening a disk drive door would be for
them to go deeper
into the machine. You're far more likely to get a
brown recluse bite
from somewhere where escape is more difficult. I
understand sock
drawers are a good place to get bitten when you get
home from
vacation.
I also didn't see the locale on this one which does
make a big
difference. No effect from the bites isn't a big
issue because
estimates are that about 85% of brown recluse bites
go unnoticed.
Necrosis is a fairly rare side effect of brown
recluse bites. It's
hard to pin those numbers down because in many parts
of the country
any unexplained necrosis is automatically ascribed
to brown recluse
bites (including parts of the country where brown
recluses have never
been sighted).
You'd be surprised how many claims there are of
brown recluse
sightings in California. Despite rumors to the
contrary there is no
evidence of breeding populations of brown recluses
in California. Of
course if you stack a crate of fresh Georgia peaches
on one of your
machines, any spiders present could take up
residence. However the
native spiders are pretty well equipped to
outcompete similar
non-native species. Many CA sightings are of desert
recluse, but most
are just another random species of spider that
happens to be brown.