About Loxosceles deserta Gertsch, 1973
Loxosceles deserta, commonly called the desert recluse, is a recluse spider belonging to the family Sicariidae. Its scientific name is Loxosceles deserta Gertsch, 1973. This species is found in both Mexico and the United States. The desert recluse is very often misidentified as either L. unicolor, a species from South America, or L. reclusa, the brown recluse that lives in the southern and midwestern United States. Neither of these two misidentified species lives anywhere near the range of the desert recluse. This spider’s specific distribution covers the eastern half of southern California, the southern tip of Nevada, the western half of Arizona, all of northern, central, eastern, and southwestern New Mexico, and the southwestern corner of Utah, extending into northwestern Mexico. It lives primarily in wild habitats. The only places it occurs near human dwellings are areas close to native vegetation; it avoids urban desert areas and even green lawns. The highest population densities of these spiders are found in packrat dens.
