The things you're searching for.	September 8, 2000

Oddly Popular: Brown Recluse Spiders Searches for brown recluse spiders have risen about 800% this year. The queries have been rising at an unusually steady pace, doubling every three months or so. Last week the brown recluse got as many searches as Ireland, Tiger Woods, or rappers Snoop Dogg and Three 6 Mafia combined. What's all the hubbub? Apparently there are rumors going around that brown recluse bites have been killing Californians. True? Not really. Here's a statement by irritable entymologist Rick Vetter debunking the notion that brown recluses even exist in California. (Vetter seems to have taken the topic as a personal crusade: here's another essay in which he compares brown recluse sightings to UFOs and Elvis.) That's not to say the brown recluse isn't dangerous -- it's just that it mostly hangs out in midwest states like Missouri and Arkansas. It IS one of two poisonous spiders in the US, along with the black widow. Yet last week the brown recluse got three times as many searches as the more famous black widow. Brown recluses don't bite people that often, it seems, but when they do the results can be rather nasty. In case you're wondering, here's Web MD's take on symptoms and treatments. The bottom line: we aren't really sure why brown recluse spiders are such a search hit. They do exist and they do bite -- but take any catastrophic rumors you hear with a grain of salt.

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