A complicated view of spiders
This is where I confess that for some time now I have been surfing the web and youtube for information on the brown recluse spider, because now that we have kids and we live in an old house with lots of spiders I get just a little defensive and paranoid. The outcomes of a nibble are gross, and I'm not even going to link to the youtube videos, and let's just leave it at that. Now even though the brown recluse doesn't do well in our fair state, I'm allowed to be concerned.
So the other day we get in the car to drive to the PO to drop off a netflix and I notice that there's this elongated piece of debris like fine straw streaming horizontally off of the sideview mirror like a thin bunch of sticks, flapping wildly in the breeze. It's flying right next to my arm which is hanging out the window and I think about flicking it off. But then at a stop sign, out of the corner of my eye this little group of twigs unfolds in Ridley Scott fashion into a nicely sized half-dollar sized spider. And when I go again it stretches out and goes flapping in the breeze again holding on by just a thread of silk. I'm impressed and feeling both some admiration and sympathy for the arachnid, but also a little creeped out...because a big, freakishly strong spider is flying chaotically next to my arm in a 30 mph breeze. I soon draw my arm into the car.
So I pull over to take a closer look at the spider. It's light brown, with long thin legs. But so are like half of all the spiders in the world so I need to be a little more intelligent than that. First, it was big and in the right size range for an adult recluse, and out of range of the size of many common spiders. Next, it was very fast and was darting with surprising speed between the mirror and the hood when I brought a piece of paper nearby it, also classic 'recluse' behavior like the videos which stress the unusual speed and retreating reaction. Further, the body was fairly small compared to the legs, consistent with expected recluse appreance. And for what it's worth, in the very minor menagerie of spiders I've encountered so far, I hadn't seen any one like this before.
Now remember the recluse is not happy in our climate and has to be introduced from a warmer one, like the fair states of VA and NC where we had just spent time a couple days prior, and has to be somewhere warm also (like the warmth of a car - and our weather had been unusually warm the whole time also). In other words, it seemed plausible to me that this fellow could have been a stow away and enjoyed the warm spell that we were in.
So the only remaining challenge is to spot the violin (aka 'fiddle back') on a big, fast moving spider. This specimen was a lighter tan color, suggesting it might not be doing well and which is also a normal variant for the recluse also. But this does make it harder to spot the violin due to the weaker contrast, especially for a total novice. I did see darker coloration behind the head in the right area, but couldn't pin it down and had no interest in doing so.
The abdomen was the only thing that gave me doubt, as it seemed narrower than in the classic pictures which depict a rounder abdomen. But to be perfectly honest the little bugger had an appearance some what in common with this guy and the size and speed and shape were too close for comfort. So as this large, brown, agitated spider darted back and forth unpredictably around my open window with the kids strapped in nearby I flattened it unceremoniously with Jenn's flip flop.
Could have been a smart move, or could have been a dumb city guy doing in a perfectly harmless spider after watching one too many youtube videos. A candidate for something harmless and admittedly more likely would be the 'giant house spider', a nice big brown spider also. It's a strange world.