Field Guide

The brown recluse is a spider whose venomous bite may be medically significant to humans, though a bite is almost never fatal. Brown recluses are most commonly encountered in houses, where they occupy little-used drawers, closets, and other small hiding spaces.

A wolf spider doesn't spin webs to catch its prey — it runs it down like a wolf! Spiders in this family have long legs and are usually gray, brown, black, or tan with dark brown or black body markings (especially stripes).

The funnel-shaped web of grass spiders is more often noticed than the spider itself. It is sheetlike, usually positioned horizontally, with a funnel leading downward to a shelter (a rock crevice or dense vegetation) where the spider hides, waiting for prey.

Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen, are familiar Missouri animals. They are not spiders, but opilionids. Unlike spiders, they have a fused body form and lack silk and venom glands.

Striped bark scorpions are pale yellowish brown, usually with two lengthwise dark stripes on the abdomen. It is the only species of scorpion in Missouri. It occurs in glades and other dry, warm, rocky areas, and sometimes in buildings and shelters and under piles of wood, brush, or garbage.

Centipedes are familiar to anyone who has overturned rocks and logs, sifted through leaf litter, or dug in the soil. Learn more about Missouri's members of class Chilopoda.

The differential grasshopper is familiar to most Missourians. Originally it lived only in wet meadows and creek bottomlands, but with the spread of farms, it has become a pest of many food crops.

The red-legged grasshopper is a type of short-horned grasshopper common in Missouri. It reaches about 1 inch in length and is often seen flicking or flying away in open habitats.