Deaths from black widow bites are extremely rare, and are even less likely from brown recluse bites.

But that doesn’t stop people from being fearful.

“A lot of the fear is overdone,” said Matt Ormsby, naturalist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. “Sure, you need to respect the spider, but a brown recluse doesn’t have the bite pressure to make it through our skin, and they are not aggressive.”

The spider must be pressed against a person to be able to pierce the skin and get any venom in, he said.

Since brown recluses like to hide in places where humans don’t go frequently, like storage boxes kept in the basement, people can get bit if they put on clothes or shoes they’ve been storing.

“The best way to prevent getting bitten is to shake out your stuff and just frequent cleaning of the house,” Ormsby said.

Dr. Alok Sengupta, chair of emergency medicine at Mercy Hospital St. Louis, said the hospital treats spider bites every year, and people are always concerned about whether it came from a brown recluse.

Even if it did, Sengupta said the amount of venom injected is so small, people don’t usually have any complications. Severe reactions are rare.