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Before we get into our list, let me start out with a disclaimer: the vast majority of spiders you’ll find in the home are harmless. In fact, in California, there are only eight types of spiders with poisonous bites – and six of them are of the Recluse family, which are not aggressive and generally only bite when accidentally making direct contact with a human.
So don’t be afraid of the Daddy Long Legs in the corner of your garage or even those nasty jumping spiders you may occasionally find on the porch. These spiders aren’t going to hurt you. In fact, they might actually help; consider that spiders feed on other insects, especially when they get caught in their web. So allowing a spider to live in peace inside the home might actually help keep other insects out.
But you didn’t come here for info on the harmless spiders. You want to know about the scary ones. Well, here are three spiders you need to watch out for:
Black Widow
Where else could we begin? The Black Widow is probably the most famous spider in the world, and it doesn’t hurt to have such a naturally intimidating color scheme. All black with just a single hourglass-shaped red mark in the middle? Pretty cool-looking, Mother Nature.
But the Black Widow is famous for more than pretty colors. It’s also one of the deadliest spiders you can encounter in California. The female Black Widow is usually about half-an-inch in length (not including legs), and its venom can cause muscle pain and spasms, abdominal cramps and abnormal heart rate. However, even though thousands of people are bitten by Black Widows annually, deaths are very rare.
The male Black Widow also has a venomous bite, but at a substantially weaker level. Male Black Widows are not considered dangerous. They are also rarely black.
Brown Widow
A member of the same family as the Black Widow, the brown variant looks remarkably similar. Brown Widows are slightly smaller and a brownish color (naturally), but still have the same hourglass marking on their body. However, this time it’s orange instead of red. And just like Black Widows, the males are smaller (and therefore less harmful).
However, the danger is even lower with Brown Widows. They aren’t capable of the same bite power as Black Widows, which means less venom is transferred. According to researchers at UC Riverside, the bite is painful but mostly harmless.
Recluse Spiders
There are six type of recluse spiders you’ll find in California: Arizona Recluse, Baja Recluse, Chilean Recluse, Desert Recluse, Martha’s Recluse and Russell’s Recluse. These spiders can be identified by a mark on their backs that resembles a violin or fiddle, which is why they’re sometimes referred to as Fiddleback Spiders.
Recluse spiders have necrotic venom, which will literally kill the skin tissue around the bite. Sometimes that means a skin graft will be required, and if the area becomes infected, you could be in serious trouble.
But as previously mentioned, Recluse spiders are non-aggressive and usually don’t attack humans unless provoked. However, if you accidentally come into contact with one, you might end up getting bit.
