Insect and Spider Identification: CLOSED: Please Help ID! Attacked During Night!, 1 by somethingwright

somethingwright wrote:
Hello,

My husband woke up this morning covered in bites, and 19 hours later I took these pictures. (The photos really don't do the actual bites justice when compared to seeing the bites in person)

He describes the bites as itchy, and a little burning sensation, but that probably comes from scratching at them & irritating the bites, despite his best attempts not to.

This was his first night home from travelling, and I do worry about bed-bugs, however he shared a two bed room with his father who did not get any of these bites. This morning after sharing the same bed I had no bites. My children in the house have no bites either.

He has probably (Conservatively) at least 50 bites covering his legs, arms, shoulders, feet, and even one behind an ear. We also have cats and dogs that are indoor/outdoor animals, however the vet said that fleas generally prefer animals to humans and it would have to be a sizeable infestation for the fleas to be on people. (I do use frontline and advantix on our animals)

As the day has gone on the redness has spread making the bites change from smaller more "pinpointed" type marks to larger ones, and are "hard" to the touch when I applied some anti-itch cream.

Some of the bites look to have a double pinprick point where maybe 2 fanges would have pierced the skin, while others only seem to have one, and even others have no discernable "entrance" point.

The only other observation I can list is that while not occuring in perfect rows, the bites do seem to have a pattern of occuring in "lines" anywhere from 1/2 to 3" apart. Along both of his back shoulders running down either his arms for example are "groups" of about 8-10 bites per side, each where you could imagine a critter of some sort "running along"

He saw a spider in our room tonight that he said was one of the fastest he has ever seen and he was able to catch it and I snapped a photo. (Being from Minnesota it is that lovely time of year when it is warm during the day, and cold at night causing many critters to seek shelter inside) He said the spider was very aggressive and actually "reared up" raising its front legs and fangs. When we flipped the spider over, the fangs seem especially large for the size of the spider which I would estimate to be approx 1cm in it's "curled up" dead position that can be seen in the photo. (But the fangs do seem un-remarkable when the spider is right-side up)

Please let us know if it is possible for one spider to inflict so many bites, or if the bites could be from fleas, or chiggers, or bed-bugs, or what the heck is going on! And if a spider, please let us know what species if possible.

I'm not really an anti-spider or bug person for the most part, I just prefer to seem them outdoors where God intended!

Thank you very much in advance for any insight you may have regarding our mysterious attacker!



This message was edited Sep 16, 2012 12:36 PM