# Help identifying a spider - So Cal area



## Teonanacatl (Feb 26, 2005)

Hi, 

This is my first post here. I wanted to ask a question about a spider I saw in my home tonight. 

I'm generally not too freaked out by spiders, and I've been trying to learn to stop being afraid of them altogether like my childhood days with hours of play. I guess tha'ts why I'm here.

I live in the Southern California mountains near lake arrowhead. 

There are two or three primary spiders I normally see in this area. 
1) the small fuzzy spiders... (give me a break, I'm learning)
2) Black Widows
3) a sort of very large house spider

The large house spiders, I usually leave them be. The only problem being when they sky dive from the ceiling... we usually get one or two of those a week. They often end up in the sink, shower, etc. and they SUCK at climbing slick surfaces. They can not climb anything such as metal, glass, fiberglass. At first I was helping them out while holding an object, and I've since given up with the object, and learning day by day to do it by hand (yes these poor bastards are in the sink every day). Normally these spiders panic for a minute, tire, then give in and let me help them. If they do bite, one hasn't tried thus far. The black widows and the small fuzzy spiders I also leave be... excluding when a widow comes into the house. They usually keep to their blace in the basement on the third floor. 

So tonight, out of the corner of my eye, I catch this spider that is screaming fast - OVER CARPET - It had a narrow body, not a fat one. long slender legs. At first I tried to kick it with my boot thinking it was a recluse, though I missed, and this thing started climing upward, up the leg of the table, and very quickly. 

It hid in the corner, and took me a minute to find. I took my mag light and held in on it for a minute, it appeared to have a slight pattern on the back, sort of yellowish or light brown running down the center of the back. The spider was dark brown.

I got a tall glass thinking this thing could not climb like the other spiders I'm used to dealing with. I unfolded a paper clip to use to knock the spider into the glass. It hit the bottom of the glass and raced around several times like a rocket...fast enough to appear as a solid ring on the bottom of the cup. then it headed upward... I shooked the glass, knocking it back down and got to the sink.... I set the glass in the sink, the instant I did, this thing had climbed out of the glass, leaped into the sink, and a little disoriented, he hesitated long enough for me to hit him with scalding hot water. That was the one thing he wasn't fast enough for. 

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone could help identify it based on this discription, lousey as it may be. 

Thanks.


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## Haplopelmatic (Feb 26, 2005)

It's kind of hard to make an ID without a picture. Is it possible for you to take one. I'd also love to see the "very large house spider". That one sounds like Tegenaria agrestis to me.

/Cheers!

Btw, say hello to Teonanacatl from me. He's an old friend of mine.


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## Malhavoc's (Feb 27, 2005)

3) a sort of very large house spider
Do a search for my name and 'false black widow spider' or hibernalis kulckanous[spelling] it looks almsot identical to a black widow but it can range from pitch black to tan brown, pitch black verity have fuzzy velvet legs/abdo but a bald cephlathorax with their eye arrangment in a 'bead' which is highly shiny looks almost like a gem, the brons on the otherh and seem or appear to posses less hair and have a black violin marking on their back (this is not a brown reclusea you can tell from body size/shaping and the actual mark itself that is semi off) the browns seem to posses less aggressiveness as the blacks (who will rear back more then obts) and the browns seem to want to run and hide more..

Also if you live in mountains, You probably dont have reclusea there is no confirmed cases of Recluse in california and 90 of reports have been confirmed to be mimicking spiders or something entirly different...If you manage to catch a reclusea mail it to theh ead of arachnocology in the university of california to properly id..as I've read on anotehr site "If you can find one recluse you can find a hunder..their nearly communal when it comes ot hides.."

Also, Grass spiders..funnel web spiders..whatever you want to call them [make a sheet web low to the grown with a funnel at the end in which they live] come in many morphs are EXTREMELY FAST not very good climbers and harmless, check into that aswell.. I may have a pix of them/scientific name of them on my forsale ad...


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## Elizabeth (Feb 27, 2005)

The description of the very large house spider made me think it was the daddy-long-legs spider, a Pholcidae.

And the dead experiment might have been a wolf spider...


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## JonDaAzn (Feb 27, 2005)

this helped me identify spiders that I've found in Southern California

http://www.phorid.net/spiders/article.htm


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## Teonanacatl (Feb 28, 2005)

Haplopelmatic said:
			
		

> It's kind of hard to make an ID without a picture. Is it possible for you to take one. I'd also love to see the "very large house spider". That one sounds like Tegenaria agrestis to me.
> 
> /Cheers!
> 
> Btw, say hello to Teonanacatl from me. He's an old friend of mine.


Looks like I got busted on my first post. Didn't expect that here. 

Yeah, that spider scared the crap out of me it was moving so fast, and ABLE to climb. It's long dead. 
I may have seen another smaller one last night. 

I'll see if I can find one of these big guys I like. ...


Ok, that didn't take long. I found this guy (the freindly supersize house spider) sitting in the bottom of my Girlfriend's trash. He's probably about 1/2 or 1/3 as big as I've found them. The HUGE ones used to freak me out, so I took them all outside last year... the population has been growing since we stopped kicking so many outside. This is the one that can't climb to save his life... I pick them up, often by hand from the sink. They seem slow and docile...at least compared to that other one. You can go right up and touch them, they freak out, but aren't agressive.


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## Teonanacatl (Feb 28, 2005)

Elizabeth said:
			
		

> The description of the very large house spider made me think it was the daddy-long-legs spider, a Pholcidae.
> 
> And the dead experiment might have been a wolf spider...



Definetly NOT daddy long legs. That one I know... used to play with them as a kid... That was one I didn't get it trouble for playing with.

Wolf spider, would you have a picture?


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## Teonanacatl (Feb 28, 2005)

Elizabeth said:
			
		

> And the dead experiment might have been a wolf spider...









hmmm..

It looks like my friendly supersize house spider may actually be the wolf spider.

That still leaves the mysterious fast spider unidentified.

Although this cream house spider looks like him too. Do they come in brown?





Cream House Spider
(Yellow sac spider)
Chiracanthium mildei


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## Malhavoc's (Feb 28, 2005)

Thats most deff a male of the grasspider I described in my first post 


http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/housingandclothing/DK1033.html
figure ten...

http://www.ilenesmachine.com/nature/bugs/pages/grassspid_001.html
http://www.spiderroom.info/va_grassspider.html

this should be enough to satisify your needs on that spider anyway

Reactions: Like 1


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## Lowellfranck72 (Jan 30, 2022)

Malhavoc's said:


> Thats most deff a male of the grasspider I described in my first post
> 
> 
> http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/housingandclothing/DK1033.html
> ...


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## Lowellfranck72 (Jan 30, 2022)

And this is?


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## Arthroverts (Jan 30, 2022)

Looks like an agelenopid (grass spider) of some sort, but seeing as this thread is over fifteen years old I would recommend creating a new one next time, higher chance of getting answers that way .

Thanks,

Arthroverts


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