8-07-06
Bedbugs are back . . . With a Vengeance!
Bedbug infestations on rise across U.S.
After waking up one night in sheets teeming with tiny bugs, Josh Benton couldn't sleep for months and kept a flashlight and can of Raid with him in bed.
"We were afraid to even tell people about it at first," Benton said of the bedbugs in his home. "It feels like maybe some way your living is encouraging this, that you're living in a bad neighborhood or have a dirty apartment."
Absent from the U.S. for so long that some thought they were a myth, bedbugs are back. Entomologists and pest control professionals are reporting a dramatic increase in infestations throughout the country, and no one knows exactly why.
"It's no secret that bedbugs are making a comeback," said Dan Suiter, an associate professor of entomology at the University of Georgia.
5-11-06
Be Alert - Dangerous California Spiders
In the United States there are eleven native species of recluse spider, and two species introduced from other countries. The most noted of these is the brown recluse spider, "Loxosceles Reclusa". The brown recluse is found in the midwest and parts of the south. California does not have Brown Recluse Spiders. However, here in California we have a spieces very close to the famed Brown Recluse, called "Loxosceles Laeta" that can be equally dangerous .
The other ten recluse species which are indigenous to the United States look very much like reclusa and can be positively distinguished only by an expert. Please do not attempt to kill or handle any of these spiders, contact a professional pest control company to address the problem.
DO NOT HANDLE THE SPIDER AND DO NOT SQUASH IT.
Your pest control professional should place it in a tightly-sealed leakproof container (such as a 35mm film canister) along with a cotton ball soaked in some regular rubbing alcohol, and mail (along with complete contact information where you may be reached if your specimen is positively identified as a recluse) in a small, padded box or envelope to Entomology, Division of Plant Industry, PO Box 147100, Gainesville, FL 32614-7100.
About These Pests
Recluse spiders were the first spider group to be recognized as a causative agent of the disease state now known as necrotic arachnidism, and this condition, when caused by a recluse spider, is properly termed loxoscelism. Loxoscelism was first recognized in 1872 when Chilean physicians linked a peculiar skin lesion known as the "gangrenous spot of Chile" to bites by the Chilean recluse spider, Loxosceles laeta. The brown recluse, L. reclusa, became the first U.S. spider associated with necrotic arachnidism in 1957, when it was linked to severe bites in the midwest. All recluse spiders, as well as the six-eyed crab spiders, are now considered venomous to humans.
An example of how dangerous a bit from one of these spiders can be, these pictures are of the damage done by a bite over a period of 10 days.
These are not for the faint of heart to view as they are quite graphic.
