Dangerous brown recluse spiders found in Michigan family's garage

A family in Michigan is scratching their heads after discovering unusual tenants inside their garage last week.

On the floor of their unheated, detached garage in Davison, they spotted two long-legged spiders, which turned out to be brown recluse spiders -- a dangerous type of spider with a powerful bite. Most bites are minor, but occasionally, skin around a brown recluse bite will become necrotic, turning a dark color and becoming a deep, open sore as it dies.

The family has no idea where the quarter-sized spiders came from or how they made their way into their garage.

Howard Russell, an entomologist at Michigan State University Diagnostic Services, confirmed the spiders were, in fact, brown recluses.

"I've been doing this for 30 years," Russell told CBS News. "I've had eight brown recluse out of thousands of spiders submitted, so they're rare."

Russell explained that brown recluse spiders are usually found in more southern states with warmer climates, such as Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri or Kentucky.

"That seems to be the heart of where they're found," Russell said.

So it was surprising to stumble across the dangerous brown recluse in such a cool climate.

"The spiders had survived the winter in that unheated garage," Russell added. "There was no recent history of travel, in some other cases there were."

In 2011, there were three isolated populations of the brown recluse reported in Lansing, Hillsdale and Flint. Since then, three additional populations of the brown recluse have been confirmed in Michigan. These new finds were located in Tecumseh in 2015, Ann Arbor in 2016 and now Davison in 2017.

"The Tecumseh population was sharing a home with a human family of five including three young children and two dogs. The homeowner believes the spiders arrived with new kitchen cabinets the previous owner had installed before the family purchased it," according to a recent Michigan State University Extension report. "The Ann Arbor specimen came from a building on the University of Michigan campus."

Brown recluse

Meh, they are here. They just aren't that common. In surprised this made news.

Our back yard is full of wolf spiders. Once in a while one gets in the house. It's useful that one of my cats loves eating bugs. And since those fuckers bite, he plays with them until they die. Then he eats them. At least he earns his keep around the house

There were brown recluse spiders in lansing in 2011? Imagine how many more cousins have been born since then.

tGreenWay wrote:There were brown recluse spiders in lansing in 2011? Imagine how many more cousins have been born since then.

Cousins started the Michigan Brown Recluse epidemic. - Rob Parker