What is this little fella?

[Seism]

I caught this dude here, not used to seeing many spiders here besides garage spiders, small jumping spiders, and jeweled orbs. Came out after the full days worth of rain. Curious as to what it is.

FYI These pics came out a lot worse than I thought, webcam was limited to 640x480, couldn't find my digicam.

And here's one for scale

I was thinking maybe a cali trapdoor spider??? I know nothing about spiders, though this bugger is getting me interested. I'm not sure, though it does seem like a juvenile, i see hair on its legs and abdomen, and it's eyes are in one group.

Any ideas?

 

[What]

The photos arent clear enough to say for sure, but it *might* be a MM H. theveneti, I think I can comfortably say it isnt a MM B. californicum though...

Any chance of better photos? Or... where exactly are you located? Might help narrow it down a bit.

 

[Seism]

Yeah problem is all that I have atm is this laptop-mounted webcam and it's focus sucks. I'm not sure what happened to my digital camera but i've been trying to find it. I'll try to attempt some better pics. I'm in south texas btw

 

[CodeWilster]

South Texas rules out Bothriocyrtum. Other (not tarantula) Mygals from Texas include Cyrtaucheniids (Eucteniza, Entychides, Myrmekiaphila) Ctenizidae (Ummidia) or Dipluridae and Atypids, with the latter this does not seem to be.

However, from the pics I can't even comfortably confirm it as a Mygalomorph :?

 

[What]

I'm in south texas btw

Ack... now I feel like an idiot for suggesting H. thev... Assumed the "cali trapdoor" ref meant you were in California... :wall:

However, from the pics I can't even comfortably confirm it as a Mygalomorph :?

I am pretty sure it is a myg, looks like it *might* be a cyrtaucheniid or diplurid, but I cant tell, at all past a "might".

 

[Seism]

Thanks for the help so far guys.

Ok, found an older digicam, but its not my good one, its macro setting blows. These are the best I could get with it. Probably doesn't help much.

Watching this little guy do its thing is pretty neat, I can't seem to get myself to let it go :} . Will soon though. I'm really starting to think about picking up a T or something

 

[BiologicalJewels]

definitely a Myg in opinion... and a MM at that

 

[CodeWilster]

Still a bit blurry to make any positive ID but yeah it sure looks Mygalomorphae now.

If I was forced to make a guess at this point, I would say Eucteniza sp.

 

[CodeWilster]

Seism, if possible, it would be great to see a clear shot of legs 1 and 2 from various side angles.

 

[Galapoheros]

I live in central tx, the species is Eucteniza stolida around here according to somebody I can't remember the name of, I think it was Brent... The males tend to come out in sept and oct, esp. after good rains. How far south are you? There is a monster down there around Kingsville to Laredo and south of that. I've only seen one pic of one of those, E. rex. But yeah, can't see that specimen very well and I don't know what else is around tx.

 

[Seism]

I finally found my better cam. Here's the best of my poor attempts at macro lol (most of 'em came out blurry).

He kinda scrunched up for the latter pics. Hopefully these will help a lot more than those other poor pics. I'm located in Nueces County, and like I said it was found at around 5pm after it had been raining the night before and most of that day. Seems to line up with what you said Galapoheros.

I should probably let this guy loose soon, he's got water and I'm pretty sure I saw him drinking, but he probably needs to eat? I think I want a pet arachnid now

 

[CodeWilster]

100% Eucteniza Note the megaspine protruding from leg 2 (first pic), like a second pair of tibial spurs. VERY NICE pictures!

I will see if I have anything that differentiates E. stolida from E. rex and will let you know if I can conclude either from the pics....

 

[BiologicalJewels]

WOW, that is a huge spine on those legs... what is that used for? I thought for a second it was a tibial spur until you happened to make that comment.

 

[Galapoheros]

I found a male in my house in October, I took a good pic when I found him. You want me to post the pic? It might be interesting to compare them. That one you found looks more stocky and hairy than the one's around here. Also, I'm not 100% the ones in my yard are E. stolida, that was the best guess from Brent H., if I remember.

 

[CodeWilster]

Galapoheros, if the specimen you found lacked the spining on legs 2 very clearly seen in the OP's first [clear] picture then the spider you found is likely Entychides.

If it does in fact have the spining, then it is Eucteniza and some comparison pictures would be great!

I am beginning to think that this is E. rex which IMO would be really cool, either way there are not a lot of pics of either species out there...

 

[Seism]

Thanks guys, those pics did turn out pretty well didn't they. That spine does look pretty substantial. Cool little guy.

An E. rex
sounds big lol.

 

[Galapoheros]

OK I'll see what pics I can dig up, I think I have several pics from others I've found too. I know for sure it is an Eucteniza sp, not the one you mentioned there. The look is very obvious once you've seen a few. Sorry, I never got pics of the spines though. I used to have a large female too. Only a week ago, I found a small female in my dryer, too bad I found her too late but at least one of my scorps got a cooked meal. A member here claims he has a preserved female E. rex in a jar that is the size of an adult aphonopelma.

 

[Galapoheros]

Found a couple of pics.
male

female

 

[CodeWilster]

How neat! Looks like the ones posted on bugguide.net here and there.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/158872/bgpage

Is that the female that went through the dryer?

 

[Galapoheros]

No that's a female I had for 2 or 3 years. It'd be nice to get one of those giants, there are a few threads about that. The male at the beginning of the thread looks a lot like this pic of a male stolida but I was also told that E. rex looks like a giant E. stolida, it might be hard to tell at a glance or from a pic. I have no idea how big the E. rex males can get.