Need Help with Spider Identification...

[daniel1983]

I have an infestation of spiders. These things are all over the place. I know they are around because of the excess crickets and bugs in my house due to my reptiles. I am close to getting my reptiles moved out of the house, but I was concerned of the growing number of these guys.

Any help with identification would be great. I was concerned that they were widows when I first saw them, but they do not look like any widow I have ever seen.

These pictures were taken inside one of my cages.

[edie]

Those actually look kind of like immature western black widows (L. hesperus). I can not tell 100% from those pictures though, the thing I'm going off of here is the body shape and the dark color around the joint of the legs.

Here is one of the only pictures I could find of a good L. hesperus with that type of coloring



Let me know if that looks anything like the spiders you are seeing.

If you can get one down and check its belly you'll be able to see some red if it is some type of Latrodectus sps. Usually if you can get a widow out of the web they will play dead for a little while.

I could be wrong though!

[edie]

I did some more looking for you.. Cobweb spiders (Steatoda triangulosa) look similar to yours too..

http://www.biosurvey.ou.edu/okwild/m...ges/tricob.jpg

I can't tell since I'm not there but hopefully those pictures can help you out, I'll let you know if I find anything else that fits in.

[Patrick Long]

Damn girl, you are good!

[edie]

Damn girl, you are good!

It makes me miss my spiders! I get stoked every time someone posts on the invert section about them.

I think the widows are out now in my yard, I might go collecting soon

[Patrick Long]

It makes me miss my spiders! I get stoked every time someone posts on the invert section about them.

I think the widows are out now in my yard, I might go collecting soon

I actually went to a store that had a lot of scorps and spiders, it totally reminded me of you!

[daniel1983]

I did some more looking for you.. Cobweb spiders (Steatoda triangulosa) look similar to yours too..

http://www.biosurvey.ou.edu/okwild/m...ges/tricob.jpg

I can't tell since I'm not there but hopefully those pictures can help you out, I'll let you know if I find anything else that fits in.

Thanks. That picture looks more similar than any I have looked at so far.

Since they are with eggsacs I assume they are full grown adults and would be a bit small for any of the widow species around here (these are around 1/2" to 5/8" TL).

[edie]

Thanks. That picture looks more similar than any I have looked at so far.

Since they are with eggsacs I assume they are full grown adults and would be a bit small for any of the widow species around here (these are around 1/2" to 5/8" TL).

Yeah, I had thought about that after I saw the eggsacks. I have actually had some really small widows that wouldn't grow at all and my smallest one is the only one that produced an eggsack for me. Mine were all black once adults though, the L. hesperus I've seen in the brown phase around here are all really tiny, they're beautiful though!

I thought the cobweb spider looked the most like your pictures judging by the dorsal pattern, they're from the same family that the widow is in, if you want to do more looking I would keep it in that family since they would have the that same body shape.

By the way, the family is Theridiidae, good luck!