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Sunday, June 13, 2015

Brown recluse spider high-resolution photos (extreme close-ups)

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

HD FOOTAGE: Brown recluse spider - extreme close-ups II
FULL GALLERY: Brown recluse spider photo gallery

I rented a high-quality macro lens for this photo shoot, which took the better part of a day to complete. I used lights, props, the whole deal to attempt to get a set of high-quality stills and video.

As with most homes/buildings in the Midwest, the crawl space of the apartments I live in have a brown recluse population. A spider occasionally would enter the living space during the hot summer months. When I first moved in in 2010, I would see one every month or so, mostly stuck in the kitchen sink (they cannot climb smooth surfaces). My solution to this problem was to place a very liberal distribution of glue traps to determine the spiders' entry point, which revealed the HVAC vents as their primary passageway. After this discovery in 2012, I screened off all of the vents and applied silicone sealer to every potential passageway to the interior walls and crawl space. Following the sealing operation, I dumped out every storage box and drawer I had, going through every crevice and hiding spot to ensure no spiders had established a residence in the living space. Thankfully, I found none.

After I sealed these openings in late 2012, I have caught zero spiders in the glue traps (which I still keep placed around the apartment just in case). The only unsealable passageway is my front door, which occasionally will allow a spider to enter. This only occurs about once a year, thankfully. Two weeks ago was the latest incursion by this particular specimen, which I put to good use on this photo shoot.