- CDC
- Heart Failure
- Cardiovascular Clinical Consult
- Adult Immunization
- Hepatic Disease
- Rare Disorders
- Pediatric Immunization
- Implementing The Topcon Ocular Telehealth Platform
- Weight Management
- Monkeypox
- Guidelines
- Men's Health
- Psychiatry
- Allergy
- Nutrition
- Women's Health
- Cardiology
- Substance Use
- Pediatrics
- Kidney Disease
- Genetics
- Complimentary & Alternative Medicine
- Dermatology
- Endocrinology
- Oral Medicine
- Otorhinolaryngologic Diseases
- Pain
- Gastrointestinal Disorders
- Geriatrics
- Infection
- Musculoskeletal Disorders
- Obesity
- Rheumatology
- Technology
- Cancer
- Nephrology
- Anemia
- Neurology
- Pulmonology
Is This the Bite of a Recluse or Hobo?
Could a patient who lives in Canada have a bite from a brown recluse spider?
I noticed that the physician who contributed the Photoclinic case of a woman with a brown recluse spider bite (CONSULTANT, August 2005, page 1038) lives in Edmonton, Alberta. This is
far outside the range of the brown recluse spider. Everything else I have read about brown recluse spiders, including work by entomologists, stresses that they live only in the south central United States, since they cannot survive the cold further north. I wonder whether the patient might have been bitten instead by a hobo spider, also known as "aggressive house spider" (Tegenaria agrestis). This spider is found in the northwestern United States and Canada and produces a bite almost indistinguishable from that of the brown recluse.
- David M. Jones, PA-C
Mr Jones makes an important point; in fact, we have yet to report a true brown recluse spider bite that occurred in Canada. This patient had been visiting family in Arkansas at the time of the bite.
-Benjamin Barankin, MD
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
