Loxosceles devia
(Texas Recluse)

Featured spider picture The spider species Loxosceles devia, commonly known as Texas Recluse, belongs to the genus Loxosceles, in the family Sicariidae. Loxosceles devia spiders have been sighted 3 times by contributing members. Based on collected data, the geographic range for Loxosceles devia includes 1 countries and 1 states in the United States. Loxosceles devia is most often sighted during the month of November.

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Suborder: Araneomorphae
Family: Sicariidae
Genus: Loxosceles
Species: Loxosceles devia

Common Name (AAS)

Texas Recluse

Other Common Names

Brown Spider, Violin Spider, Six-eyed Brown Spider, Fiddle-back Spider

Author

Willis J. Gertsch & Stanley Mulaik, 1940

Primary Colors

Sightings Overview

There have been 3 confirmed sightings of Loxosceles devia (Texas Recluse), with the most recent sighting submitted on June 22, 2016 by Spider ID member spiderid. The detailed statistics below may not utilize the complete dataset of 3 sightings because of certain Loxosceles devia sightings reporting incomplete data.

Web: NAN% of the time, Loxosceles devia spiders are sighted in a spider web (Sample size: 0)
Sex: 1 female and 2 male.
Environment: Loxosceles devia has been sighted 0 times outdoors, and 0 times indoors.
Outdoors:

Location and Range

Loxosceles devia (Texas Recluse) has been sighted in the following countries: United States.

Loxosceles devia has also been sighted in the following states: Texas.

Seasonality

Loxosceles devia has been primarily sighted during the month of November.

January: 1
February:
March:
April:
May:
June: 1
July:
August:
September:
October:
November: 1
December:

Additional Remarks

Easily mistaken for the “brown recluse” (Loxosceles reclusa) or other species in the genus.
This spider lives mostly under stones, in abandoned rodent burrows, and other natural refuges outdoors.
Egg sacs of related species average between 30 and 50 eggs per sac, with rates of successful hatching varying from 40-80% (Vetter 2008).
This spider’s venom contains sphingomyelinase D, a necrosis-causing enzyme.
This is a medically significant species: venom is potentially dangerous to humans. Reactions can vary from “unremarkable” (little, if any, damage and are self-healing) and “mild” (redness and itching, but usually self-healing) to “dermonecrotic” (a necrotic skin lesion that requires medical intervention) or, very rarely “systemic” (affecting the vascular system and potentially fatal). The potential for bites is slim, and can be largely avoided by taking simple precautions, and the majority of verified cases fall into the first two categories (unremarkable or mild). Most importantly, many other medical conditions can produce the skin lesions so often wrongly attributed to Loxosceles or other types of spiders. Please consult Rick Vetter’s 2008 article for a list of these. Misdiagnosis can lead to worse problems than a mere spider bite (if the actual cause is MRSA, for example).