What kind of spider is this?

[nhancock]

Fish eat spiders and I found one in my basement. I am wondering what kind of spider it is. I know there are some great biologists on this site and am hoping for some help. It is a new house (finished in September) and this spider is pretty small. It has no hair that I can see. It is light tan in collor with long legs. With legs extended it would be about the size of a dime. The legs have brown stripes and it has black triangles on it's back. I found it in a finished area of my basement dangling from a web.

The reason I am asking is my wife was recently bitten by a spider (we think) and her arm was swollen for about a week and she was in alot of pain.

Does anyone know of any good websites for spider identification?

[Lonnie]

This one ?

http://www.sfu.ca/~roitberg/lab/people/maxence/tagrestis.jpg

[nhancock]

pretty close.

That might be it.

The black triangles on the back are a little more distinct and the color is a little lighter. But that may just be the quality of this picture.

[Stoney Clarke]

I'm not a biologist, but I do have a lot of spiders in my house. i believe it is a Brown Recluse. A Hobo is brown but hairy and mainly stays on the ground. If you head down to Home Depot purchase a 1/2 gallon of Ortho Spider Insectiside (sp?) and a few fog bombs. It will cost around $20 and it is the same stuff the pro's use but charge $75.

SC

[Lonnie]

It's really hard to say for sure. There are so many non-descript spiders. If you're worried, I'd just nuke your basement like stoney suggested and not worry about it...

L

[nhancock]

I don't think it is a Brown Recluse. I have done a little research on the internet and I don't think that is is.

[Grizz]

This thread is giving me the creeps! I can't so much as look at a spider, I can barley stand to handle those slimy fish I catch on rare occasion. ***shivering with goose pimples***

pea's

[Mike A]

There are really nice photos of a lot of spiders on this site. It's specifically for an area of California, but the photos are nice.

http://kaweahoaks.com/html/spiders.html

These ones are particularly disturbing photos of the immature and male spiders because they look so different from what I would normally recognize.

http://kaweahoaks.com/html/latrodectus_hesoerus.html

Creepy. I hate spiders. I used to not mind them until I'd had a few really ugly bites over time. And thankfully I live in an area now with almost no black widows, unlike Utah where I would find them all too frequently.

[Lonnie]

Mike, thanks for the links. Too cool.

Now there is a class of wet flies/soft hackles collectively called "spiders", but I've never fished with them (they are very old school).

http://www.carlsons.co.uk/shop/images/fly/wet/black_spider.htm

http://globalflyfisher.com/reports/spider3.gif

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/tyingtips/spider2.jpg

http://www.snipeandpurple.co.uk/images/flies/Greenwell-Spider.jpg

EDIT I figured I better post this before mike nuke the thread...

[Tom]

Yeah, I hate spiders.

My Father in law lives in Egypt. My wife is MEGA squeemish about spiders here in the states, but told me about these and shrugged them off as no big deal. It boggles my mind. I am sure you have all seen this photo, but imagine waking up and finding one of these trundeling across the bathroom floor as you turn the light on.

http://www.gophergas.com/funstuff/camelspider.htm

(This is actually two of them together, but still creepy.)
All I can say is YIKES!!!

[katghoti]

Have no fear, the pictures you refer to as camel spiders are not that big. Check out http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp for more information.

Katghoti

[RAW]

The only "Brown" Recluse I have seen is Crosby. He turns a little more pale in the winter, but come summer when he's been out on the secluded streams and darkens up, he's a Brown Recluse!!

[Tom]

Have no fear, the pictures you refer to as camel spiders are not that big. Check out http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp for more information.

Katghoti

Anything that is that ugly and can run 25 mph creeps me out, I don't care if they are only as big as a dinner plate. :)

Imagine a dinner plate running at you at 25 mph...After you were past the feeling that you were in some LSD infused re-creation of Alice in Wonderland,
it is enough to give you a 5 year case of the heeby jeebies.

[Scotto]

I worked at the Utah State University Lab for over 9 years and interracted daily with the arthropod diagnostician. He has done surveys throughout the state and has not documented a single brown recluse. The two most venomous spiders in Utah are the black widow and the hobo (agressive house) spider. A hobo somewhat fits the description of the spider, but this time of year and that size it is probably not. I would suspect that it is a wolf spider. You can submit the spider to the plant pest diagnostic lab at Utah State University and have it identified. The diagnostician will determine the species based on the eye patterning and the chelicerae pattern. You should mention to Alan (the diagnostician) that you found it dangling from a web. Hobos are funnel web spiders and would likely not be hanging from a silk. Same with the brown recluse.

You can go to the following website to find out more about the hobo or call (435)797-2436.

http://extension.usu.edu/insect/fs/hobospid.htm

This website also gives a great description of the bite symptoms from a hobo spider.

Good Luck,

Scotto

[Rod]

You can also drop it of at any of the USU extension office around the state.
When I was working on getting my master gardener, I had to volunteer at the extension office identifying plants, plant diseaeses and to my horror PESTS!
(I frickin' hate spiders!)
The Utah county extension is in the county building on Center and University in Provo

[Scotto]

anyone see the spider fly in the winter 2004 FLY TYER pub? My son and I each set out to tie one of these bad boys, but in the end mine had 3 very short legs (melted them right off) and a few malformed legs. It almost looks like the daddy longlegs from the old days after my friends and I pulled the legs off one side to see what they would do.

Scotto

[Troutmaster]

Hobo spiders do not have rings on their legs. Their legs are uniformly colored. The giant house spider is one of the spiders most often confused with the hobo spider. They generally have rings or markings on their legs but not always. Hobo spiders never have rings on their legs. I have seen many of these in my basement that have scared the s*** out of me, but then I saw the rings and was quite relieved. This is a good site for what may be hobos and what definitely aren't. http://pep.wsu.edu/pdf/PLS116_1.pdf

--Jason

[nhancock]

I am a little concerned. My 4 year old daughter was recently bit by a spider (I don't know if it was this one). The doctor said to keep heat packs on it and after a few days it went away. The swelling and redness were not to the extent of my wife's bite but it was definately a spider bite. This makes two spider bites in about as many weeks.

Should I be concerned enough to contact an exterminator or am I over-reacting? Or is there something I can do on my own to make sure this doesn't happen again?

[Johnny]

When we first moved into our house we would get quite a few spiders marching boldly across our basement floor. It got to the point where we would see two or three big ones a day. None of us ever got bit but they kind of freaked is out. We picked up some of the Ortho Home Defense and sprayed the perimeter of the house around the foundation, and also around doors and windows. After about a week we stopped seeing spiders in the basement. About three months later they came back, we sprayed again, and they went away. I usually don't get online and pimp bug spray but this stuff worked for us.