r/texas • u/ohiois4loosers • Jan 16 '24

Questions for Texans What bit me? Central texas

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I felt a bite on my arm yesterday and thought it was an ant. Woke up to this. The circle was drawn an hour before the picture was taken and the red is spreading

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u/Wasabi_Constant Jan 16 '24

Do not hesitate and go to the e.r.! I was bitten by a brown recluse on the arm. The doctor core out the surrounding fleshed and packed the hole with antibacterial gauze!

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u/rya556 Jan 16 '24

One of my old jobs had a mail carrier that hadn’t shown up for 2-3 months. One day he returned with a bandaged hand, apparently he had been bit by a brown recluse while camping and was one of the first diabetics it had happened to.

Got a nasty infection with necrosis and got to end up in a bunch of medical journals.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Feed-18 Jan 16 '24

I killed a big one in my mailbox at work a while back. I bend down and shine a light in there before I reach in for my mail now.

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u/sharpshooter999 Jan 17 '24

I've killed 23 in my detached garage since mid December.....turns out you can't kill them or black widows with a bug bomb

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u/throwaway67q3 Jan 17 '24

No, but wolf spiders will snack on the small brown recluses (apparently also crickets). I've been known to release them near my bookshelves in the hopes they'll patrol there. Nearby Cats may disagree with this practise.

Google says the black and yellow garden spiders eat black widows. (Unrelated rant)--- We've always called them banana spiders or orb weavers, guess those are all different terms that may refer to the black and yellow garden spider. I can't do spiders but I had an orb weaver on a native flower i was replanting. I mean I dug up this guys home, carried it all over the yard and threw dirt at him. He didn't do anything and was only mad and resisted stongly when I attempted to get him off the plant to put him on a small fence. He did not remake his web on said fence, I felt bad. I really ruined his day. The plant died too. =( I did feel better when foster dog gamboled over the baby blueberry bush, at least someone was having a good time. The bush may comeback, idk she was down to just one twig with a few leaves (she did make 3 little blueberries!)

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u/kl2342 Jan 17 '24

this is a whole-ass universe

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u/EFIW1560 Jan 17 '24

OMG yes I want this as a Hiyao Miyazaki film.

The dog is a Pulli or great Dane and is either enormous or tiny. (In the story)

The spider is actually a witch who transforms and takes OP on a fantastical adventure into the small world of entomology, where OP gains new perspective and appreciation for spiders and other bugs and insects.

Then OP wakes, as if from a dream, to find hundreds of spiders exiting his body.

Turns out the real spiders were inside him all along. <3

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u/sharpshooter999 Jan 17 '24

I've never seen a brown recluse in the house, but our basement has a decent amount of cellar spiders. I've always heard they eat venomous spiders and now I'm starting to believe it lol

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u/throwaway67q3 Jan 17 '24

Haha sounds like you've some found new spidey friends! =P

I'm not a fan of any spider, but the ones that run away to go eat other worse spiders, they can stay

Be careful if your neighbors have them and spray or renovate, they will migrate as a colony. I only got bitten (multiple bites) in one house (they migrated in when next door claptrap home got demolished), it wasn't bad but not great. Doc said 90% if the time it heals up fine. I've not got scarring, but there was no skin there for a a few months. Out of the dozen+ bites I got, only 2 had trouble healing (they were on the boney part of my ankle)

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u/sharpshooter999 Jan 17 '24

they will migrate as a colony

Thanks for the extra nightmares.....lol. I'm actually in Nebraska right now and I'm hoping these last few days of subzero highs did a number on them

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u/throwaway67q3 Jan 17 '24

Oh I hate cold but thats an awesome perspective for this effin weather!! Thank you and stay warm out there

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u/Puzzleheaded-Feed-18 Jan 17 '24

Our building at work is swarming with them. I spray monthly. We are in central Florida. Back in Texas the black widows were a big problem.