Re: HELP - insect clarification
Posted by Thanks... brown recluse on October 15, 2003 at 12:50:11:
In Reply to: Re: HELP - insect clarification posted by Bodie the Dog on October 15, 2003 at 12:11:07:
Bodie the Dog,
Thanks for the information, although it is not it. But I have added another bug to my list of nasty critters to watch out for.
I was advised it might be an insect associated with death - or, it assists in the decaying process. I am still investigating this further and plan to look at some slides tomorrow at the campus of UCR.
With regard to the brown recluse being listed - well, here - this came from a class I had to take a few months back. But the good news it - very rarely will you come across one of these in the backcountries - per what Rick Vetter (Professor/Instructor in Entomology from UCR) told us.
Eleven species of recluse spiders are native to the United States and a few non-natives have become established in circumscribed areas of the country. The brown recluse spider is the proper common name for only one species, Loxosceles reclusa. It is the most widespread of the North American recluse spiders and lives in the south central Midwest from Nebraska to Ohio and south through Texas to Georgia. Although the brown recluse does not live in California, we do have four species of native recluse spiders. The most common Californian recluse spider is the desert recluse, L. deserta. It is found mostly in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts, in the foothills of the lower San Joaquin Valley, and in adjacent areas of Mexico, all of which are sparsely populated by humans. In older literature, this spider was referred to as L. unicolor. There are additional species (L. russelli, L. palma, L. martha) but they are so uncommon that they are of scientific interest only.
Thanks –
Joel the big bad bug fighter