# Cool spider in my garage...



## Imbrium (May 5, 2009)

I was hanging out in the garage with my brother last night and this spider caught a moth so I took the opportunity to snag some pics of it.  It was under the ledge at the bottom of the shelves, so the pictures aren't great.  I didn't want to disturb it from it's meal.  I don't really know much about true spiders, is it some kind of widow?  It's got the same scraggly type web.  There are at least two more out there of the same kind.


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## spiderfield (May 5, 2009)

It does look like some kind of widow (Latrodectus sp.), based on its body structure in the pics.  A dead giveaway, i'd say, would be if you saw an hourglass shape on its underside.  Widows also do construct "scraggly-looking" webs.  Hope this helps!


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## xhexdx (May 5, 2009)

It looks nothing like a Latrodectus sp.







I couldn't tell you what it is, though.


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## Redapache (May 5, 2009)

Looks like a Steatoda sp. or a type of false widow.


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## spiderfield (May 5, 2009)

Redapache said:


> Looks like a Steatoda sp. or a type of false widow.


I think you're right on the money there!  This is the closest pic I could find online.  It is of a Cobweb Spider (_Steatoda triangulosa_).


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## GiantVinegaroon (May 5, 2009)

_Steatoda_ sp..  A very fat female.


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## pitbulllady (May 5, 2009)

It's a female _Steatoda triangulosa_, alright.  I live in South Carolina myself, and I find these all the time.

pitbulllady


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## Widowman10 (May 6, 2009)

dang, you people beat me to it!

steatoda species for sure. they are known as "false widows" for a reason. some of the darker ones like grossa and borealis are quite dark and can be confused with widows by the untrained eye. with a teeny tiny bit of practice, you can tell the difference. 

abdomen: in steatoda is generally more flat, while widows have more globular type, "fast-back" abdomens, coming to a point at the spinnies. 

legs: in steatoda are more short in comparison to body, while widows have longer legs. widows also have a noticeable thinning of the legs in the last segment (tibia is very thick compared to a very thin metatarsus. the same area in steatoda are tapered down). 

eyes: not that you can see this without a microscope, but the eye pattern for latrodectus is different from the eye pattern for steatoda.


i'm not so sure on the triangulosa species ID, but i might hazard (i say hazard b/c the pics are 100% conclusive) a guess that this could possibly be S. grossa- solely judged on the small portion of the patterns i could see on the abdomen. triangulosa IME look a little differently are are a little smaller in size.


Imbrium: if you could get more/better pics, we might be able to better ID it.


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## pandinus (May 6, 2009)

looks like the triangulosa i see all over round here. theyre parthenogenic, so if you find one, youll probably find a lot more later.




John


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## Widowman10 (May 6, 2009)

pandinus said:


> they're parthenogenic


hey john, would you mind citing your source for this? i've never heard this before.


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## pandinus (May 6, 2009)

Widowman10 said:


> hey john, would you mind citing your source for this? i've never heard this before.


it was an old book on spider identification i found in the biology dept. library of a local university, not sure if i can track it down again.



John


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## Widowman10 (May 6, 2009)

pandinus said:


> it was an old book on spider identification i found in the biology dept. library of a local university, not sure if i can track it down again.


i did a quick search on the internet and didn't find anything that mentioned steatoda and parthenogenic, that's the only reason i ask. plus, i always have found a healthy population of males. i know males can be found with parthenogenic species, but the number of males is usually very small.

now i'm kind of curious to know.


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## jsloan (May 6, 2009)

Parthenogenesis is not unheard of in spiders:

www.biolbull.org/cgi/reprint/13/6/302.pdf


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## Widowman10 (May 6, 2009)

jsloan said:


> Parthenogenesis is not unheard of in spiders:
> 
> www.biolbull.org/cgi/reprint/13/6/302.pdf


yes, i've definitely heard of parthenogenisis in true spiders before, actually most of the ones in that article (thank you for posting that btw). my question was just about steatoda triangulosa, i've never heard it regarding that particular species before. as i said before, i'd like to see something regarding that one, might be pretty interesting.


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## jsloan (May 6, 2009)

Widowman10 said:


> my question was just about steatoda triangulosa, i've never heard it regarding that particular species before. as i said before, i'd like to see something regarding that one, might be pretty interesting.


Ah, I should have read more closely.    I think it was this guy:

*Braun, R. 1956. Zur Biologie von Teutana triangulosa (Walck.) (Araneae: Theridiidae, Asageneae). Z. Wiss.Zool. 159: 255-318.*

I don't have the paper, and haven't read it, but when I did a search on parthenogenesis in _S. triangulosa_ it was cited by a number of authors.


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## Moltar (May 6, 2009)

I used to think those Steatoda's looked like Latrodectus until I knew what to look for. They're fun to watch. I always let a few of these guys live in my house to keep the other wild bugs in check.


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## Imbrium (May 7, 2009)

Thanks guys!  I'll try to get better pics later, if I can find it again.


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## Imbrium (May 7, 2009)

I couldn't find the same one again.  But I got some pics of two others that were hanging out on the garage door.  They were kinda hard to get pictures of.  My camera kept trying to focus on just their legs, or the texture of the door behind them.

























This was smaller than the other, and it was in a less good spot for pictures.  I kept accidentally bumping it's web.






And their webs were full of tiny babies.



















The other night there were some smaller spiders in the same area that I think could have been males, but I couldn't find them at all today.


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