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Sticker of Mediterranean recluse
Bug card No. 0907 of 1,500

Mediterranean recluse

Loxosceles rufescens
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersHouses and farms8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Mediterranean recluse is a small brown spider with a violin-shaped mark on its front part. It has six eyes, arranged in a little triangle. It hides by day in dark places like caves and basements, and goes hunting at night.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
First from the Mediterranean and western Asia, now in many parts of the world, in caves, cellars and basements
Length
7 to 7.5 mm (0.28 to 0.3 in)
Top speed
about 1 km/h (0.62 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Dangerous: look, do not touch
What does it eat?
It hunts small insects at night, like silverfish and cockroaches, instead of catching them in a web.
For real!Photo of Mediterranean recluse
Picture by Luis Fernández García. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Mediterranean recluse about 7.5 mm long (0.3 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould run across a dinner table in 3.6 secondsmoves 37 times its own body length every second

How big is Mediterranean recluse compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It is one of the most invasive spiders in the world, carried everywhere in boxes and goods.

2

It looks almost exactly like the brown recluse from America.

3

Its web is thin and messy and is used as a daytime hiding place, not as a trap.

4

An egg sac holds about 40 eggs.

5

In 2021, these spiders were found in a university library in Michigan, which closed for two days.

you asked

Most asked questions about Mediterranean recluse

?How big is the Mediterranean recluse?

It is about 7 millimetres long, not counting the legs.

?Where does the Mediterranean recluse live?

It comes from the Mediterranean area but now lives in many countries, often in basements, caves and tunnels.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Loxosceles rufescens
Group
Spiders
Family
Sicariidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Sicariidae
Lives on
Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Mediterranean recluse spider

Where the facts come from

  1. Mediterranean recluse spider (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Luis Fernández García. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

More from the same group: Spiders

Also at home here: Houses and farms