Spider bite in New Jersey

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Summer has arrived and a spate of wet weather brings with it a host of creepy crawlers. Recently, Captain Hugh Carola from the Hackensack Riverkeeper had a run-in with one such creature.

On June 18, he noticed a bug bite on his leg. It was the size of an “old school silver dollar and mildly itchy”. The next night, he became ill with a low grade fever and the swelling grew to eight inches across. His fever hovered around 101 degrees for four full days.

After two trips to the doctor he was diagnosed with having been bitten by a wolf spider. The fever was an allergic reaction to the bite. He was prescribed antibiotics and his doctor was glad to see the bite did no tissue damage to his leg. It only left a mark.

Carola, who takes children and adults alike on wildlife tours of the Meadowlands, said the bite is simply par for the course in his line of work. “It’s somewhat of an occupational hazard for people that are around boats and water,” he said.

However, he does not know when he was bit. “It might’ve happened in my house and not on the boat,” he added.

Most wolf spiders prefer moist areas like docks, boats, wharfs and piers, but wet weather could lead some to move indoors. Typically, spider bites occur when a person is asleep and a spider comes nearby. Rolling over or moving around in your sleep could alarm a spider. “It feels threatened by your movement and it gets you,” he said.

How to recognize wolf spiders

Wolf spiders are big, brown and hairy, according to Carola. Unlike orb spiders or garden spiders, wolf spiders typically ambush their prey and do not construct elaborate webs to trap insects like many other spiders. “They’re an ambush spider,” he said. “They will make a web, but only as a way to move.”

Females will build a web to lay their eggs. Wolf spiders live off of slower, crawling insects, such as larva near the water’s edge, water bugs and other invertebrates that live near the water. Typically, they are found in damp areas. “You’re not going to find them in a dry house,” he said.

In addition to wolf spiders, black widow spiders call the Meadowlands area home. “Wolf spiders are big. Wolf spiders do have venom, but they are not as dangerous as the black widow,” he said.

Black widows are extremely poisonous, but Carola notes that they are very rare. “The ones that are dangerous are not nearly as numerous as the ones that are not,” he said. “I’ve been a nature boy my whole life and I’ve never seen a black widow. They really tend to lay low.”

Erik Kiviat, co-founder and executive director of the non-profit environmental research group Hudsonia, has done field work in the Meadowlands and is only aware of two venomous spiders in the area: the black widow and the brown recluse.

A bite from the brown recluse spider can cause a lesion and can cause local necrosis of the skin and, in a few cases, bad bites can require skin grafts. Nonetheless, Kiviat has never seen either spider in the wild in New York or New Jersey. “There may or may not be other spiders in our region that are dangerous to humans. This is a matter of controversy. Sometimes the bites and stings of other animals that were not seen are blamed on spiders,” he said.

What to do if you get bit

Typically, spider bites look similar to a pimple, only clear. Carola recommends washing with anti-bacterial soap and putting Bacitracin on the bite. Carola said bigger, more painful spider bites might warrant a check to the doctor. “You know what’s normal and when it looks different,” he said.

Initially, Carola visited the doctor because he believed the bite might have been from a tick. At the onset, it had what appeared to be a “bull’s eye” marking typical of tick bites. Some spider bites, including those from the black widow and brown recluse, resemble a bull’s eye like tick bites.

Like many animals that can be dangerous, spiders do not seek out humans to bite them. “It’s just a reaction. They’re not coming for you,” he said.

The only spiders that might be attracted to humans are tarantulas, which prey on smaller animals such as birds. Carola recalls stories from his mother who knew a man nicknamed “Spider” that unloaded banana crates in Paterson and would find tarantulas all the time. However, tarantulas are not normally found in the northeast.

All in all, Carola does not want to start a campaign against spiders.

Spiders eat pests, such as mosquitoes, which are a major nuisance in the Meadowlands during the summer months. “It’s because of the weather. Once we dry out a bit it’ll calm down,” he said. “Just be aware that we share the world with a billion different kinds of critters. You can’t kill them all.”