University of Michigan: We shouldn't have closed library after recluse spiders found
Darcie MoranWorry over some creepy crawlers — specifically, the dangerously venomous recluse spiders — closed a University of Michigan library this week.
Three Mediterranean recluse spiders were found at the end of January in the University of Michigan’s Shapiro Undergraduate Library basement storage area, which is a nonpublic area, said Kim Broekhuizen, associate director for the university's Office of Public Affairs.
The library staff closed the building Sunday and Monday this week due to a misunderstanding of the situation — and out of an abundance of caution — when they learned of the discovery of the spiders, Broekhuizen said.
Based on what's now known, the closure is believed to have been a mistake.
"We apologize for the inconvenience to the university community," she said.
The library, affectionately known as the UGLi on campus, was was treated for spiders, and the building reopened Tuesday, Broekhuizen said.
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An expert in spiders at the University of Michigan-Dearborn campus identified the spiders as being of the Mediterranean variety and not brown recluses, Broekhuizen said. It is suspected the spiders came in through tunnels, with less foot traffic currently on campus.
The expert who identified the spiders — Anne Danielson-Francois, who has been a professor at the university since 2007 and been asked to make many such spider identifications over the years — said this is the first time she's been sent an actual recluse spider in Michigan. Danielson-Francois, chair of the biology discipline at the university in Dearborn and an arachnologist who teaches spider biology, has never come across even a brown recluse in the field in Michigan.
They were common sights, however, during her time working at the University of Kansas.
It was a little surprising at first to learn the Shapiro spiders, specifically the male stuck to a glue trap that she used to make the identification, were Mediterranean recluse spiders, she said.
"Then you think, 'Oh, actually they're pretty cosmopolitan and they've gotten to other buildings and other states,' so (it) kind of makes sense," she said.
Danielson-Francois said she received one male adult spider — the one used to make the identification — two female adult spiders and a few juveniles to review. The juveniles were of the recluse family but could not be further identified.
The Mediterranean recluse is distinguished from a brown recluse by its genitalia, and reports that its venom is less potent appear to be unfounded, she said. They like caves and can be found in basements and boiler rooms.
The bite of any type of recluse spider can cause a range of reactions from minor irritation to necrosis — tissue death. Reports of deaths from spider bites tend to be overreported, Danielson-Francois said. Either way, University of Michigan community members likely don't have too much to worry about.
"You're really unlikely to be in any kind of danger unless you have to be in close contact," she said. "But if you're the plumber crawling through a crawl space that has a lot of these spiders, then you could be bit, and that would be concerning.
"But just walking around the library stacks — it's a very, very low risk."
Darcie Moran is a breaking news reporter and podcaster for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Moran: dmoran@freepress.com. Twitter: @darciegmoran.