It is very common for people bitten by spiders to arrive in a doctor's office without bringing the spider that bit them. When this happens, a doctor must guess what sort of spider could have bitten the person. The brown recluse spider is a very common spider to blame, since its name is so well-known, but it is very seldom that the brown recluse spider was involved. Doctors' guesswork has led many people to believe brown recluses exist outside their native area, such as in California, even though this is not true. It is pretty common for a Brown recluse to bite someone and that person may not feel any symptoms for multiple hours or even days from the time of the bite. In most cases, either a disease was the cause of the symptoms, or a different kind of spider bit the person and the doctor makes a mistake when he or she guesses it was a brown recluse.