As their name implies, brown recluse spiders are reclusive — Whitworth describes them as shy — and often go unnoticed as they spend their time in places where there is not a lot of human activity, ...

But with my leg starting to necrotize, it was kind of a confirmed brown recluse bite by all the nurses and doctors.” Bell’s case quickly turned serious, requiring a six-day hospital stay.

However if you are bit, it can leave more than a mark. “Like the spider bite itself could cause a little bit of damage to the tissue,” said Wilder. Wilder said the spiders love to live inside.

And all were from the Midwest. A brown recluse bite can be life-threatening in 10 percent of the cases, but Vetter estimates there are only one or two deaths a year, typically in small children.