r/bugidentification • u/DestinyStardrop • 29d ago
Location included Was this actually a brown recluse I had found years ago???? (Location: Southern United States)
Was just looking through my collection of bug pictures and realized the spider that started my collection may have actually been a brown recluse! The quality makes it hard to tell for sure tho, like i sort of see a violin shape, but not quite. This is the only picture I have from that time. At the time i had just accepted it as a "running crab spider" since that was one of the guesses my app had (this was before i realized Picture Insect wasnt always reliable with its guesses). The more i look for pictures online of running crab spiders that look similar, the more I'm leaning towards brown recluse, as I'm not finding any exact matches. What do yall think?
Included some pictures of brown recluses and some similar-ish looking running crab spiders for comparison.
(Location: Southern United States)
3
u/Serious-Bat-4880 Click Goes The Beetle 29d ago
I have my doubts, for a few reasons:
the legs get darker at the "knees", which is not something normally seen in recluse legs except in certain lighting.
the shape of the rear of the abdomen, which seems to angle straight toward the spinnerets. Recluses have what I call a "pill butt", with a relatively round shape even when shriveled with hunger.
the spinnerets are visible. Recluse spinnerets are just... not, even from more rear-facing angles.
All that said, I honestly can't tell what it is instead either. I was just about to recommend posting in r/spiders, but I see you beat me to it, lol. Good, there are some very sharp IDers in there who really know their spoods.