I am by no means a expert on spiders but i am leaning towards the side of it being a recluse. After reading up a little on them on wikipedia and comparing the pictures. Some of the markings do resemble the brown recluse, particularly the pattern on the abdomen looks almost the same as the marking on the spider's back in your second picture.
you can definetly get come funky stuff in your cricket box's i know the pet store i used to get mine from got theres from all over the place. Used to always get hobo spiders in the box and even once got a young T.
I was bitten by one recently 3 times but my reaction to the venom was not nearly as bad as those pictured above, but the worst I ever been bitten by anything.
Funny thing is, i thought I brought whatever bit me from the woods either 4wheeling or bringing it back in habitat material like bark ect. for my terrariums. All I knew was something bit me in the night but had no ideal what. Few days later I found a crazy venomous spider in my empty cricket keeper w no lid. in my garage . It ID'd as a recluse, and had all the symptoms from the bite as well. Still about a month and has not healed.
My father was bitten on the inner thigh by a recluse. The poison ate away flesh About the size of a quarter. It took over a year to fully heal, even with daily attention. After he was bitten we looked up a ton of information on them, not an expert but I would say that looks like a brown recluse. You live in Texas ? Cause they do inhabit there. Put some sticky pad traps in your house and see if you catch any more. Try not to get bit, the pictures I saw earlier in this thread are exactly what happens! looking at my dads almost made me sick.
I'm pretty sure it's not a recluse, I've done many jobs with multible pest control operations. Lots of spiders have markings like that on their back. I agree that it looks like a wolf spider sp. but it's still big enough to bite and the effects will not be pleasant, whether the spider is dangerously venomous or not, all spiders are venomous.
i had the same spider in my order of crickets a while back. i thought the same thing and thought it was a recluse but i found this forum and this is what they identified it as...
That’s no brown recluse… I usually get 2-5 of those bastards in with our weekly shipments. They usually come bolting out of the boxes and up my hand which naturally makes me run around knocking things over screaming like I have been shot with a .45 until I am able to squish them by any means necessary. I have been bitten several times by them and though it leaves a little mark they are harmless.