Brown Widow Spider
Did you know that there are four types of Widow Spiders in Florida? They are the Northern Black Widow Spider, the Southern Widow Spider, the Red Widow Spider, and the Brown Widow Spider which will discuss in more detail below.
Although the venom of these spiders is not as toxic as the Black Widow, they are still very painful and can cause serious injury if not treated.
Because brown widow spiders (Latrodectus Geometricus) can vary from light tan to dark brown or almost black and may have different markings such as white, black, yellow, brown, and even orange on the back of their abdomen, they are tough to recognize! The picture below is of the red widow spider.
Brown Widow Egg Sac
You’ll notice the hourglass marking on the bottom of the abdomen, colored yellow or orange. The Egg Sac of the brown widow spider is not the same as other widows and has pointed projections, much like the old sea mines.
If you have pictures of this spider or believe a Brown Widow has bitten you, please post your comments below and send the photos to the email address at the bottom of this page.
oh, and the area of the swelling is about 507 inches in diameter.
I live in Mukilteo, WA, 20 miles from Seattle and about 4 to 5 days ago I got bit several times on my upper leg. 2 or so days later, I woke up to see a dark, small spider with a REAL large and round abdomen crawling close to my face. In the spur of the moment I killed the spider and so I do not have photos of it, but suspected it could be a widow, judging from my memories of it’s shape. All the bites itched but were small, except the lowest one, right next to my knee, which over the course of several days has become slightly swollen (the skin feels slightly raised), red, and itchy (from time to time, although more frequent itching now), but no other symptoms so far. My mom ( A registered nurse) says there’s nothing to do for now but I’m not sure if it’s okay to just leave as is. is there something I should do, instead of waiting for the possibility of it getting worse?
We bought our home in middle Georgia two and a half years ago. It had just been built in an area that used to be a forest. The first summer that we lived here we had a major problem in our backyard with black widows, but we chalked it up to the fact that they had been displaced when our subdivision was built. We have found these wierd egg sacs since last summer and we are now finding very few black widows, but our backyard and garage are infested with brown widows. Does anyone know what can we do? We hunt them down and kill them but we just keep finding more and I have two small boys.
I live in East Texas and work at a plant farm. There are brown widows everywhere. It took me a while to figure out what they were because nothing I have seen so far has said they are in Texas.Also, I have read different things about how dangerous they are but I know they have been here for at least a year, in doorways, under chairs, in pots, and noone has ever been bit so they really must not be agressive.
My daughter found this brown widow spider in our garage in Conroe, TX
Messy web, spiky egg sac…definitely a brown widow. There are lots of messy webs around my husbands work bench…so I guess we need to go spider hunting.
Sorry forgot to mention, I’m in Costa Mesa, CA.
I was closing the garage door tonight and just barely made out a spider crawling quickly up the door and into the garage. So I opened the door and got out the flashlight and found what turns out to be a brown widow. She only had one egg sack but from the sounds of things I better start looking for more. I’ve seen black widows around my garage before but only on occasion.
The web it made was actually a tightly woven web. it was in a small space about 2 inches wide. I hosed it down with brake clean and then after I determined what it was I squashed it. No second life for this bugger.
I live in Southern Utah and am very fimiliar with Black widow spiders but I noticed a STRANGE LOOKING spider that had the same body as a black widow but had a brown body almost identical to the pictures seen above. I Found it peeking out from under the lip of the bottom of my stucco on my house, and was taken back to see it during the day instead of at night.I wasn’t even aware that Brown widows existed till I started researching them online. Please let me know if they are migrating here and how to keep them under control.
My two year old daughter was bitten twice by a brown widow spider this morning on the lower leg. She developed a localized area of redness and inflammation, slightly larger than a 50 cent piece in area. We took her to the ER (as well as the spider for identification). They adminstered an oral antibiotic and sent us home after no further symptoms within an hour with a prescription for Cleocin three times daily to prevent any possible infection at the site of the bites. The spider had the classic bright orange hourglass on the abdomen/ brown body and legs. So far there are no more symptoms. It’s only been six hours since the bites occurred, so I will be monitoring her for any more possible effects. Everything I am reading on websites so far indicates that the brown spider is very nonagressive and won’t bite you unless you provoke it… but that definitely was not the case with our daughter. She was sitting at a picnic table coloring a picture when the bites occurred. Anyone else had any incidents where the spider bit them ‘out of nowhere’?
I worked at a restaurant in south mississippi for a few weeks when we first started noticing the brown widows around our B.F.I. cans outside. We really didn’t know what they were but saw the hourglass and figured they weren’t that good for us. So I finally gave in and bought some spray. I killed around 20-30 large widows and almost all the webs had egg sacs. That was about a month ago and ever since i have been seeing more and more all around my house, and the worst part, there’s hundreds of baby ones all over my porch. If anyone knows of a particular spray that gets the jobs done better then the others it would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve relocated to FL recently and while staying with my sister discovered an odd egg sac underneath one of her deck chairs. She swore up and down it was a brown recluse sac (because a pest control guy told her sister-in-law that when he discovered the same egg sacs at her FL home). Anyway…I went on line and looked up the egg sac and it’s definitely the brown widow sac. We sprayed the chair and thought we got rid of it.
Well…..now I am in my new house and my sister gave me a few deck chairs….including the one we found the egg sac on. I just went outside and there’s a fat little brown widow under the chair, and a nice fresh egg sac.
These critters are pretty resiliant. After a lot of research I did find out they are indeed very dangerous and even though I have no spider phobias (I love insects & bugs, always fascinated me) I’m not real comfortable having them camp out all around my new house. I’m going to get rid of it and any others I find. The last thing I need is a spider bite while trying to organize my new house and look for a job. Doh!
Our 13 year old dog,Jasmine, died last Wednesday suddenly. We thought it was old age, but we had killed what seems to be brown widows in our back yard. And since she died we have killed more than 15 widows. She died having problems breathing and I am convinced she died from a widow bite.
Hi,
I have found a few black widow in our yard over the past years…
About a year ago, I found my first brown widow in the garage by the plug outlet, I was tipped off by the spikey egg sacs. Now, a year later, they are EVERYWHERE! is there some way to get rid of them?
I live in San Diego, CA and have found several brown widow spiders this past week living in my small patio/back yard. Last year I found a single mature black female over the course of a whole summer in my shed. This week I have found two spiders that I thought were immature blacks, but after reading this string of posts realized they are mature female brown widows. They both have a bright red hour glass on their abdomen with unique brown and yellow markings.
I don’t know too much about the species, but the webs were in plain sight on a table and kid’s chair. They both had a single male in them and several baby female spiders close by and even an immature female just a few inches in her own nest almost like a small family. I have also found several egg sacks with the indicative “points.” They seem to be coming in droves this week even after I sprayed down the back yard with insecticide.
My inner child’s curiousity was peaked and I put them in some plastic jars, while I enlightened myself on what exacly they are. If anyone could use them to study or anything you can have them otherwise I will probably get rid of them later this week.
This has been living in our bathroom for a few weeks, but it runs and hides when the dogs are near.
I never knew there were other types of widows until I got curious about this new resident in the house.
subject( brown widow) their are different ways of determining a spider of being a brown widow, they don’t always have a well defined hourglass on their abdomen,they can have just a , orange,red,or yellowish stripe in place, most of them have black bands on their legs, with a big abdomem an little head, in fact the venom of the brown widow , is Moore toxic then the black widow ,but the (black widow )injects Moore venom ,making her Moore of a threat if bitten.
I live in Tampa, FL. I came across my first brown widow about a year ago on the outside of my bedroom window. It had the shape of a black widow with an hourglass on its abdomen. Intrigued, I did some research to determine that it was a brown widow, which I had never even heard of before. My wife was pregnant, and fearing that she could be bitten, I did a thorough search of my yard. I found thirteen brown widows that day (along with multiple egg sacks). I killed the ones I could find and had a lawn pest control service come and spray. Even though the pest control service comes every 2 months, I’m still finding these things all over the place (so far, at least 4 dozen).
About 2 weeks ago, my wife noticed the tell tale web under the back seat of her car. I killed a widow with egg sacks under the seat where my now 9 month old son’s car seat is hooked up. Where are they going to turn up next? It truly worries me that he, or my wife, or my dog will one day be bitten by one of these things. I HATE spiders!
was bitten last tuesday (7/7/08),caught the little pain and now her and her eggs are now in a jar of rubbing alcohol. i was bitten on left ring finger. finger and hand swelled up. no pain till hours later my for arm started to fell tight
I live in Charleston South Carolina and I worked at a local animal shelter. Outside around pretty much every window, door and kennel I was finding these weird egg sacs. They were a light tan with what looked like spikes all over them. I began to investigate them further and started seeing the spiders themselves. The normal size for a black widow but it was a greyish brown and had little brown stripes over the abdomen. I noticed the orange hourglass so I asked around and people were telling me it was a false widow. Me myself I had never heard of a brown widow at the time decided to do some internet search since we all know you can find anything on there and learned it was a brown widow and it was still venomous to humans. Glad I have severe aracnaphobia and took time out of my day everyday to spray and squish every spider and egg sac I could find. Don’t know if I can help anything with this other then a confermation of the spider in coastal South Carolina.
I live just outside Indianapolis Indiana and came home through the garage on a very humid day to find anywhere between 10 and 15 spiders on the garage floor, not moving. I checked the biggest one out…light brown color, on the abdomen it had a think black ring and a yellow spot on the inside. The spot doesn’t seem to be in any specific shape, just a little yellow spot inside a black ring. I wasn’t sure what kind of spider this was…brown widow is the closest I’ve seen so far. It looks to be more of a mix between a brown recluse and a brown widow.
Brown Widow? Geez. I have the feeling that spiders are all over me now that I have finished reading this! Yuck! I was just spraying for bull (wood) ants and saw this spider hanging from our oak tree at eye level. The wind moved it and I could see the hourglass figure on the underside of the spider, used ant spray on it and put it in a container. I examined it and came looking for what it was when I found pictures of the spider in the jar. Then I saw the egg sacs.
I have egg sacs ALL over my yard and even one in my van door (when you open the door you can see it…it is recent and I thought it was pollen…yucky heebie jeebies!!!). I WILL be taking some pictures and I can send them. I’ll take the pictures tomorrow when the sun is up as I don’t want any surprise attacks. I’m going to have my husband watch my back…literally. I’m in Tampa…and I live about 3/4 of a mile from St. Joseph’s Hospital…off of Armenia, a few blocks south of Hillsborough Ave. After looking this up, I talked to my son and showed him the pictures.
He said that there are eggs sacs ALL over the yard by the hundreds. I’m going to need quite a few cans of spray by the looks of it. For the record (basically for those who don’t like killing spiders…) I have a severely allergic child due to immunity issues and needs an epi-pen for a simple mosquito bite…I’d hate to think of what a brown widow would do to him.
I have come across two brown widows in the Tampa Bay, FL area in the past year or so. One in a friend’s garage in Tampa (saw the hourglass and the egg sacs, looked it up on line, and alas, a brown widow). The friend insists it was a black widow (found it at night and destroyed an hour later with a vacuum – evidence gone!), but the egg sacs were definitely of a brown widow. Today I just found one in my mailbox in Dunedin, FL including a web with 5 egg sacks (I just moved in). Made me realize that I wouldn’t want to be a mail carrier around here! I have some photos I can send.
I live in Norwalk, Southern California. We keep a ping pong table in the back yard and I desided to move it into my room for easier access. I cleaned it up as best I could and removed all the visible cob-webs, then moved it into my room. Later that day when I went to bed I found a brown widow hanging from a web suspended between my bed and the ping pong table. I scared it and it ran back to the ping pong table and hid inside a round tubing support beam for the table. I sprayed some bug spray up the tubing and one by one 6 brown widows fell out of the tubing. I moved the table back outside at almost one in the morning and I’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight and taking tomorrow off of work to clean my room out and re-wash all my clean clothes just in case. I’ve been bitten by a black widow in the past so this really freaked me out.
I’m in Central Florida. My yard is infested with brown widows. I haven’t killed them yet because, well, I just feel awful about killing them. However, they are starting to make homes on my clothes line! We do not own a dryer, so the line is the only way we can dry our clothes. I’m starting to get very nervous of putting my clothes on in the mornings for fear of getting bitten. These spiders don’t seem very shy to me…they live on my back door that we open and close many times throughout the day. And we’re always hanging clothes up outside, so you’d think they’d make their home elsewhere. Now there’s one living behind my window at work.
I don’t want to kill them, and I definitely don’t want to use some kind of toxic chemical spray…but I’m not sure what else to do. I have a little dog that goes in and out all the time, two cats that like to kill bugs, a husband who is deathly allergic to most insect bites, and we’re going to start trying for a baby soon. Logic, I guess, says to get rid of the spiders!
But I’d like to know first how dangerous they really are. I know they are not aggressive, don’t inject as much venom as black widows, and don’t defend their web…but if I did happen to get bitten, could I die? Would I go straight to the hospital and they’d fix things right away? Would I be in agony for months? Could my leg fall off? I just can’t find this info anywhere online. Grrr…wish the spiders would just move elsewhere! :-(
I live in So. California (Long Beach). A few weeks ago we found a dead black spider with an bright orange hourglass on the abdomine behind a planter. I was hunting for bugs for an injured lizard my kids wanted to keep. On another midnight bug hunt, I discovered an live black widow spider. We have finally done a spider hunt on the undersides of my plastic plant pots and found an army of widows, more brown ones than black. They all had the reddish orange hour glass.
The largest of the spiders were protecting egg sacks which match the spiky ones shown when you Google “Brown Widow Spiders”. (I wanted to take a picture, but my husband scoffed.) It was creepy because there were so many (more than 15), and so many egg sacks per spider. I think the record was seven for one spider. We have lived in our house for ten years and this is the first time I’ve ever seen either variety of widow, black or brown. Could it be global warming?
I live in San Diego California, I noticed 4 egg sacks outside my bedroom window. They have been there for over a month. I have never seen the female spider that laid them. After searching the net, I realize they are Brown Widow Spiders egg sacs. They are white, round, and prickly. What is the best way to get rid of them? Help.
I found some spikey white egg sacs in a spider web in the corner of our wharehouse, but the small spider near the sac didn’t really look like the brown widow pictures. The abdomen was much smaller and not nearly as round as in the pictures. What other spiders produce this spikey white egg sac?
Everybody seems to be spooked by the brown widow, but it’s relatively harmless. They’ll bite if you bother their web, just like the black widow, but there’s easy ways to avoid their inconvenient bite. If you have benches, stools, or tables outdoors, periodically wear some work gloves, turn them over and insepect. Basements… a simple plug in tool will keep more than just spiders out. Attics, always difficult, but wear long sleeves and gloves and you’ll be fine. And if a creepy crawly is someplace you don’t want it to be, and a paper towel isn’t an option… Windex or Lemon Pledge will make them very unhappy where they are and will move one.
-Tony -Arachnologist
I found my first one working on an A/C unit in Baton Rouge, LA. last week. I spotted those unique spiked egg sacs long before I spotted the spider. I found the one female and about 5-6 egg sacs. I had never heard of the brown widows until now.
Hi I was just wondering if the Brown Widow spider was ever found in Central Europe? Becuase in our cabin there is a spider that looks a bit like the ones in the pictures. I havent done anything with it yet but I’m a little worried.
Thanks for any news
P.S. I don’t think it’s a brown widow spider but the similarity is there, it sits on the window sill in the crack in the wall. When ever i walk by it it hids there.
We live in Orange Cty, CA and have seen plenty of Black Widows. We have 4 kids and go on regular evening spider hunts to try to control them. It always erks me to see them make home in the fender wells of the kids quads and tricycles. At least we have figured out how to find them… check out any chaotic low webs just after dark with a flashlight and there she is…
This year however we have begun to see the spiked egg sacs and today killed about 7 brown widow around our yard (mostly on the kids toys and play ground!!) Anyway, I am wondering if any of you can share more about their behavior so we know what to look for.
They sure do seem to be procreative little boogers!! Lots of sacs everywhere. The webs aren’t always low like we’ve seen with the Black ones. Do they come out at night? What do the males look like? Will we begin finding them in our garage now too? Uuuggh… got the hibby jibbies!
I found an unusual spider this afternoon inside a web under a shelf on my pavilion on the patio. There was also a light brown egg sac about 3/8 of an inch in diameter covered with little points. Here are a few pictures:
I had never seen one like that before. We live in Orange Co, CA, and have lots of black widows around here, so I’m very familiar with those. The web funneled into the corner, and there was a spider at the point.
Using a stick, I removed the web, and it was a tough job. The spider fell to the ground curled up in a ball, and it looked as if I might have accidentally stuck it with the stick and killed it. However, when I showed my husband the spider and poked it, it uncurled its legs and grabbed the stick.
With the legs extended, the size was about 1 to 1 1/4 inches. The abdomen was huge, so I sprayed it. Later, I turned it over, and there was an orange hourglass on the underside.
I have never seen a brown widow before and didn’t know they existed until I googled it and found your website. I am sending pictures to your email.
Thanks for your pictures on the web site and for the info.
Hi there,
I live in South Africa in the city of Port Elizabeth. I recently moved here, and moved into a town house that had just been built.
I found in the garage, that there was a web with hundreds of newly hatched spiders, but thought nothing of it. just sprayed them with a poison spray and that was it. Now, I find my house infested with Brown Widow spiders.
Just this weekend i went on a spider hunt, and killed (burned) about 25 medium sized widows and 2 full sized as well as about 12 egg sacks.
I have had close encounters with 4 different full grown widows as well. What is the best way to get rid of them? I need to do something soon, before i also end up in hospital…
A couple of years ago my husband got bitten by a spider while we were sleeping. We live in central fla. Never saw the spider, never felt the bites. He had a total of six bites. On his hands, arm and on one of his thighs.
The thigh bite was the worst, swelling up to the size of a tennis ball. That bite was drained several times by the doctor. Nausea, fever, stiffness were bad for several days. I also had a bite near my arm pit. It never amounted to much as I had, had surgery at the time of the bite and the antibiotics used for surgery were still in my system.
Am a Florida cracker who has been in woods, old dirty barns full of spiders, lived on lakes, boated, skied, mowed tall grass in fields, rides horses in forests. Never been bitten until now. And bitten in bed by possibly a brown widow spider of all things! Go figure!
Last year killed what I believed to be 10 Black Widows on and around the house in south Louisiana. With some outside spring cleaning today, noted some “widow shaped” spiders, but all 4 were brown and with egg sacks. An A/C Tech told us last year about Brown Widows, but I was skeptical (only believing in the Black Widow and Brown Recluse spiders in the U.S.)
With the information contained on the FL website, and several recent news articles regarding Brown Widow migration into LA, I am more convinced. They are poor web builders, like their Black cousins, but seem to play ‘possum’ when provoked. It’s an odd characteristic for an arachnid. Irregardless, there are 4 more dead spiders, and countless little ones in egg sacks.
Question though, how can they be eradicated? Is there an effective spray or powder?
Thanks!
i might have got bit by this it was brown with a yellow circle on its back it roamed my cheek when i was standing but distracted i thought it was an itch I don’t know if it bit anywhere else but it bit my cheek its been a day and only slight cheek swelling I don’t know what spider this is though for sure…
Living in southern California, have a lot of brown Widows here now. With kids it’s a bit scary. The experts say not that dangerous, but the comments above belay that.
I work for a P.C. company in south-central Georgia. We started noticing the Brown Widow around July ’07. Since then, their population seems to have gotten much heavier. We found 17 brown widows and dozens of egg sacs on a riding lawn mower. There was a total of 26 at that one residence.
I had a spider living in the siding by my front door since before Christmas, and called her my pet spider “Charlotte”. A few weeks ago I saw a white sack in the web, covered with little pointy things. Another sack appeared, and then a third today.
I finally decided to search the net to figure it out and found that the egg sack definitely meant it was a brown widow. Some websites say they are very dangerous so I had no choice but to kill her and her egg sacks.
I bought some spray, and as spraying her she spun around and I was able to see the extremely bright marking on her abdomen, showing me that she was definitely a brown widow.
I then searched all around my apartment building and found one other brown widow and egg sack. Although she never bothered me for months, I couldn’t risk her biting me, or dealing with the thousands of babies that were about to hatch.
RIP Charlotte
I found a brown widow on my porch today with its egg sack. She didnt seem to get upset about us moving her into a plastic container and isnt realy acting against the other spiders that are in it with her.We put her egg sack into the container with her thinking that it may hatch. (maybe get some babies) Kids and i have been watching her all day and havent realy seen any movement at all. Its funny that something so small can hurt some one so much. Is there anything that i can do with this spider other than killing it. Maybe a place that we can take it to?
I just caught one of these little brown spiders in my bedroom closet looks like she made a web in one of the corners there was a cock roach in the web about 5-6 times the size of the spider if thats any indication of how poisonous they are I would not want to get bit.Most all the descriptions are accurate in that its a very docile spider she didn’t try to escape like the black widow. they bolt usually if your shadow even passes over them. she is small about the size of my pinky nail with a very large thorax kind of a mottled white and brown color with a dark brown hourglass definitely a female and definitely a widow have not been able to find a photo online of this exact spider
My son was bitten in the abdomen and didn’t realize how bad the bite was because it was just a hard red bump. When it started to burn and felt swollen and hard, i took him to the doctor and he had to have it opened and drained. When we went back for a check up the doctor told us that more blackened tissue where the venom had damaged would have to be removed-he is scheduled for surgery tomorrow. He is a young adult who works outside in Ky and the bite just didn’t look that infected, however his symptoms quickly worsened with body aches and pain,nausea, headaches, and slight fever. Until this happened, we didn’t even know there was such a spider as a brown widow.I just hope my son recovers.
Found two of these brown widow spiders in my house after cleaning up some cluttered areas, I live in central California and have never seen these before. All I’ve ever seen were the black ones. It didn’t seem too irritated when i stopped it with a piece of paper though to snap a quick picture. I’m still not fond of them around if they are as bad as they are said to be because I’m 7 months pregnant:S
i thought the black widow is the most venomous.i live in Kentucky and i know for a fact I’ve seen a red and brown widow, and i have been studying them. i saw a red widow in a pine forest, and a brown widow twice on side of a building and one on a guttering.
i saw a red widow in the shower once but i mushed it
Bite by Widow spider believed to be Brown Widow by doctors. Had Exteme fatigue, Weakness, Dizziness, Bad headache, Extreme body aches that led into chills, muscle tremors then to seizure. Per medics, became extremely hypotensive, short of breathe, altered level of conciousness. Emergent transport to hospital. The spider venom not only sent me into anaphalactic shock but also managed to make into my blood system and attacked my platelets. Platelet level dropped to 35. In hospital for a week on pain med drips, blood pressure med because of hypotension issue, and monitoring because of lack of blood platelets. Was very weak for along time after leaving hospital with strange body pains. I survived the Brown Widow Spider bite barely.
Sorry, no photo. 78 y.o. man living in Naples, FL was bitten by something about 4-6 mos. ago. Didn’t pay attention to it as it continued to grow w/ infection. Within 1 mo. after bite, lost sight in one eye (continuously going from one Opthimologist to another, test after test with NO specific results), then irregular heartbeat (back to emergency for meds. to regulate) now walking w/ use of walker. 2 mos. ago showed the bite to regular Dr. (now the size of “tearing a dollar bill in half”, quite deep w/ black center surrounded by progessive inner very pink to dark pink/red outer ring. Dr. drew circle around it stating: if it goes outside the circle he drew..your in trouble!? Thank you for comments and information (I believe he’s very much in d e e p trouble).
Ive been finding these brown widows all around the outside of my house lately and have a few questions. First, the ones I’m finding have a pink hour glass on them and not the orange or yellow described above have you ever heard of that before? Second, I have looked at different sites about how toxic their venom is and they all say something different. How dangerous are they really? I’ll try and get a picture of one and send it to you. Thanks.
The black widow venom is 15 times as potent as a rattle snake. Though it may inject less venom into an unfortunate victim. The brown widow’s venom is reportedly 2 times as potent as a black widow but it is considered less dangerous because it is a timid spider that doesn’t defend it’s web. The red widow is the most venomous of all the widow spiders but is temperamental to climate and is only found in south florida. According to Jeff Hollenbeck at bugguide.net who was bitten by a red widow says this about it, “A clear lymph fluid also oozes from the pores surrounding the bite. The muscle spasms are permanent, (at least my case) reoccurring several times a year for several minutes at a time.”
Just bitten by a brown widow spider in my sleep…the area swelled up and got very red and feverish…then I got very anxious, my blood pressure shot up, cold sweats, pain in muscles…stabbing and hot pains throughout my body, blurred vision, shortness of breath and feels like a very bad flu with a bad headache and stabbing stomach pains. Its no fun and whats more is there are multiple varities of widow spiders…most people don’t realize this, as I didn’t until I researched it a little…even if its little, but has a big abdomen…leave it alone!