Are brown recluse spiders in Iowa?

Brown recluse spiders are real, they're in Iowa, and almost every photo you've been sent of one is something else. Here's how to actually identify them.

Iowa is on the northern edge of the brown recluse's natural range. They're established across southern Iowa — including parts of our Ottumwa, Albia, and Centerville service area — and occasionally show up in Des Moines, usually after hitching a ride in moving boxes from Missouri or Kansas. They're not in every Iowa home, but they're not a myth either.

How to actually identify a brown recluse

• Uniformly tan or light brown body and legs — no patterns
• no banding on the legs.
• Six eyes arranged in three pairs (most spiders have eight). You'll need a magnifier.
• A darker violin-shaped marking on the cephalothorax (the front body section) with the neck of the violin pointing toward the abdomen.
• Body about the size of a quarter (legs included). Legs are smooth
• not spiny.

What people usually mistake for a brown recluse

• Wolf spiders — much larger, hairy, with patterned legs.
• Cellar spiders ('daddy long-legs') — extremely thin legs, hangs in webs.
• Yellow sac spiders — pale yellow, common biters but not recluses.
• Common house spiders — round abdomen, lives in messy webs.

Where they hide in Iowa homes

Brown recluses are reclusive — that's literally where the name comes from. They prefer undisturbed, dry, dark spots: basements, crawl spaces, stored cardboard boxes, behind furniture, in rarely-worn shoes, inside garage clutter. They are not aggressive and do not seek out humans.

What to do

• Don't reach into stored boxes, stacks of firewood, or shoes you haven't worn in a while without checking first.
• Reduce clutter in basements, garages, and storage areas. Use sealed plastic totes instead of cardboard.
• Use sticky monitor traps along basement walls — this is the only reliable way to confirm whether you actually have a population.
• If a sticky trap catches one, call. A confirmed brown recluse population in a home is a real treatment situation, not a DIY job.