# ID this spider?



## lizardminion (Feb 27, 2012)

The site I found the pic on labeled it as some sort of unknown house spider. :?
http://www.spiderzrule.com/spider408/Random 018.jpg
Image from Spiderzrule.com.


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## Silberrücken (Feb 28, 2012)

That is a Kukulcania hibernalis female.

Reactions: Like 1


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## pitbulllady (Feb 28, 2012)

Yup, good ole _K. hibernalis_, the Poor Man's _G. pulchra_!  Great captive spiders, really my favorite "true" spider species, these are very tarantula-like.  A female will live for many years; I don't even know how long, honestly.  I've had one for 13-14 years now, and she was already big when I got her.  If you have T's and want to make a transition to keeping true spiders, get a few of these.

pitbulllady


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## Ciphor (Feb 29, 2012)

pitbulllady said:


> Yup, good ole _K. hibernalis_, the Poor Man's _G. pulchra_!  Great captive spiders, really my favorite "true" spider species, these are very tarantula-like.  A female will live for many years; I don't even know how long, honestly.  I've had one for 13-14 years now, and she was already big when I got her.  If you have T's and want to make a transition to keeping true spiders, get a few of these.
> 
> pitbulllady


The problem with a true spider living 13-14 years is true spiders cease to molt after sexual maturity, for female mygalids (tarantulas, trapdoors, purse-webs, etc.) they continue molting after sexual maturity, allowing for more longevity. Basically your saying your spider has been wearing the same exoskeleton for over 12 years?

Has a true spider of any species ever in history been recorded living over 6 years? I don't want to make assumptions here, but I have personally not read or heard about a true spider living long like that.


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## Tarantula_Hawk (Mar 1, 2012)

Yes there are records of true spiders living for so long, especially the Filistatidae (and i would also include the Sicariidae, which surely live more than 6 yrs).
Additionally, filistatids are the only araneomorph spiders that do actually molt after reaching maturity.


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## Silberrücken (Mar 1, 2012)

Ciphor said:


> The problem with a true spider living 13-14 years is true spiders cease to molt after sexual maturity, for female mygalids (tarantulas, trapdoors, purse-webs, etc.) they continue molting after sexual maturity, allowing for more longevity. Basically your saying your spider has been wearing the same exoskeleton for over 12 years?
> 
> Has a true spider of any species ever in history been recorded living over 6 years? I don't want to make assumptions here, but I have personally not read or heard about a true spider living long like that.


Everything pitbulllady said is true. I have an 11-year-old female that molts 3-4 times a year. I have had her since she was a tiny sling. pitbulllady is the only other person I know of, besides myself, that has observed these beautiful spiders over an extended period of time.


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## pitbulllady (Mar 1, 2012)

Ciphor said:


> The problem with a true spider living 13-14 years is true spiders cease to molt after sexual maturity, for female mygalids (tarantulas, trapdoors, purse-webs, etc.) they continue molting after sexual maturity, allowing for more longevity. Basically your saying your spider has been wearing the same exoskeleton for over 12 years?
> 
> Has a true spider of any species ever in history been recorded living over 6 years? I don't want to make assumptions here, but I have personally not read or heard about a true spider living long like that.


Hate to disappoint you, but spiders in this family DO indeed continue to moult, and reproduce, after maturity, at least the females do.  Mine has produced four eggsacs by four different males over the years, and she moults two or three times per year.   They are very much like Mygalamorph spiders in many respects.  I don't even know how long females can live, honestly, since mine is still healthy and strong and I don't know of anyone else who has attempted to keep them long-term and really document their lifespans.
I have a "free-range" female in the house who is at least as old as my captive, and she produces an eggsac every year.  I first noticed her in 2001, and she, too, was already a large adult.  She could have been there in her "den" prior to that, though.

pitbulllady


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## Camden (Mar 1, 2012)

I know someone on here that just had an african trapdoor that just died, it was 12 or 13.


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## zonbonzovi (Mar 1, 2012)

Wade Harrell had a particularly large specimen displayed at the ATS conference last year that he said he's kept for over a decade.  

PBL- was it you that had some success keeping several confined to a large tank?  My apologies if my memory is being overly creative.


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## Galapoheros (Mar 1, 2012)

Wow I would not have guessed they lived longer that a couple of years.  I've got them in my house and was really surprised to see one pull in a red wasp that got into the house, spiders usually leave wasps alone ime.  I see the weird looking mature males now and then crawling on the ceiling.


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## pitbulllady (Mar 1, 2012)

zonbonzovi said:


> Wade Harrell had a particularly large specimen displayed at the ATS conference last year that he said he's kept for over a decade.
> 
> PBL- was it you that had some success keeping several confined to a large tank?  My apologies if my memory is being overly creative.


I've successfully kept related females together, sisters from the same clutch, and I've had a male and female live together until he matured, they mated and he died naturally a few days later.  I've never seen a female kill a male that she'd allow to mate with her, although I have seen them kill males that they just wanted nothing to do with, and they DO pick and choose which males they will allow near them and which ones are just another meal.  Males don't live but a few more days, like a week tops, after mating, though.  These are colonial spiders in nature, but like wolf packs, colonies are generally made up of related individuals, and an outsider will quickly be attacked, killed and eaten if it winds up in a colony's territory.  They definitely seem to recognize one another, presumably by smell, and it's not uncommon to see two females foraging a short distance from their respective burrow/tunnel/crevice/whatever encounter each other other, and tap and touch each other with their pedipalps, then move around each other and go about their separate ways.  It is also not uncommon to have four or more females, usually a large adult and several sub-adults, daughters presumably, sharing a tunnel.  Spiders that have tunnels in close proximity to one another will sometimes exchange homes temporarily.  I have seen three large adult females sharing a tunnel-web.  These spiders do not react defensively at all other than by playing dead when picked up or cornered, except for females with eggsacs and recently-hatched 'slings.  They are protective and will rear up, lunge and attempt to bite anything that gets near the sac or 'slings.  'Slings will stay with the mother for several months before gradually dispersing and her protectiveness will gradually subside. I have actually seen females apparently regurgitating partially-liquified prey and the 'slings feeding on that.  It is absolutely fascinating to take a flashlight and observe a colony outdoors on the side of a tool shed on our property during the summer nights.  As long as I don't make noise they are oblivious to me or the light, but even a loud car stereo going past the property on the highway will send them scurrying for their "dens" like fiddler crabs.

pitbulllady


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## Galapoheros (Mar 1, 2012)

What's the nature of the venom these guys produce?  Years ago there was one by my desk, I casually dropped it in a container to feed a sub-adult emperor scorpion.  Not that I don't like the spider sps, I've become more appreciative of it since then.  The scorpion grabbed it and starting eating it, I simply thought it would be a meal for the scorpion and assumed it would be no threat to the big scorpion.  I looked in at about 5 hours later and it was still eating that spider, seemed strange to me.  Then I realized the scorpion was dead, frozen in time with the spider in it's mouth parts.  I can't prove it died because of that spider but the odds are good imo, I won't do that again!


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## Silberrücken (Mar 1, 2012)

It's too bad I can't share my pics here. They would blow your socks off. Even pitbulllady would be blown away. ;-)


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## pitbulllady (Mar 2, 2012)

Silberrücken said:


> It's too bad I can't share my pics here. They would blow your socks off. Even pitbulllady would be blown away. ;-)


Why can't you share pics?  At least share a link to them online; I mean, it's not right to tantalize us like that, lol!  Anyone can open a free photography account on many sites online.

pitbulllady


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## Silberrücken (Mar 2, 2012)

pitbulllady said:


> Why can't you share pics?


The forum doesn't give enough space to load so many pics.

I will look into an image-hosting site. I have a FB account but that is such a fouled-up site lately.


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## zonbonzovi (Mar 2, 2012)

Thanks for that, PBL.  My uncle gives me collecting carte blanche at his place when I visit so I would like to attempt something approaching a "community" and these seem a better canidate than anything locally available.  

Silb...post some pics or I'll tell my FL relatives that you're giving away free bourbon


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## pitbulllady (Mar 2, 2012)

Silberrücken said:


> The forum doesn't give enough space to load so many pics.
> 
> I will look into an image-hosting site. I have a FB account but that is such a fouled-up site lately.


You should try Photobucket or one of the other photo sites, which will allow you to link directly to this site so that you CAN post pics in your threads.

And Galopoheros, I honestly don't know about the venom on this species, as I've never been bitten by one, in spite of handling more than I can possibly count.  The only study online I've found on their venom is here: http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/P60979 .  They are not considered medically-significant.  HOWEVER, the venom does appear to be very potent and fast-acting against invertebrate prey, especially other spiders, and I have seen these feeding on adult Black Widow females that were larger than their predators, and they readily take down large adult American Cockroaches, or "Palmetto Bugs", as we call 'em down South.

pitbulllady


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## catfishrod69 (Mar 2, 2012)

Yeah, Silberrucken, try photobucket. I use it alot to upload and link multiple photos.


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## Silberrücken (Mar 2, 2012)

zonbonzovi said:


> Silb...post some pics or I'll tell my FL relatives that you're giving away free bourbon


You better NOT, LOL!!!!!   

OK, how many pics per post is allowed with linked images? Does anyone know?


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## catfishrod69 (Mar 2, 2012)

As far as i know you can link as many as you want, but im not completely sure. 





Silberrücken said:


> You better NOT, LOL!!!!!
> 
> OK, how many pics per post is allowed with linked images? Does anyone know?


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## Silberrücken (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, I have yet to find an image-hosting site that doesn't take your copyrights... :-/


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## Malhavoc's (Mar 4, 2012)

Silberrücken said:


> Well, I have yet to find an image-hosting site that doesn't take your copyrights... :-/


Deviantart?

http://www.deviantart.com/

I havent checked their terms of service though.


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## pitbulllady (Mar 4, 2012)

Malhavoc's said:


> Deviantart?
> 
> http://www.deviantart.com/
> 
> I havent checked their terms of service though.


That's a good one, one I have used for many years, but you can only post links to photos.  You cannot "hot-link" directly to DA and have the pic show up in your thread.  They DO allow you to put your own copywrite with "creative commons", though, and rigorously go after users who steal other user's pics.  A link to a pic is bettter than not seeing the pics at all.

pitbulllady


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## Mamata Polle (Mar 5, 2012)

Malhavoc's,
Perhaps you should use Flikr? If you're worried about people stealing your photos, they have a setting where when you right-click on a photo, there is no save option. And I have seen every type of copyright notice on there from, "Free to Use," to "Don't Touch or Else!" I REALLY want to see those photos man! 

Pitbulllady,
Wooooot!!!! Yay, I'm so glad there's someone else out there who keeps and KNOWS things about K. Hibernalis. I love this species and have litterally grown up with them. They make great houseguests because they are smart enough to build their webs in places that annoying things like roaches, flies and Mosquitos like to pass through. After having watched, fed and interacted with them free-range in my house I decided to finally take the plunge and keep one. These are the only spiders whom I feel okay about keeping for the duration of their lifetimes, (As in not depriving them of their freedom,) because they spend all their time in their webs anyway, which are often in or on houses. My immature female, "Kholi," is currently living in a large Kritter Keeper with a male whom she seems to think is good company despite not being able to mate with him. You can see her and her buddy, Nakni, here:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/617425
http://bugguide.net/node/view/617427
What you said about them being communal makes so much sense now. One of the Free-Rangers in our house is fully mature and has been in her current location for at least three years, though probably alot longer... Her name is Morgana, and when she is when she's hungry she peeps her head out of her little hole and waits, then I feed her and she dissapears for another six months...LOL. Durring one of her particularly long fasts, I noticed a tiny little sling of the same species USING HER WEB. This had me thinking she was dead because I thought that the little spider's movements would trigger her attack, and I've seen these spiders, "Recycle," webs of their species before when they are no longer occupied. About a month later, Morgana popped out of her hole waiting for food! And now after recieving a mealworm and a cricket, she's gone invisible again just like always.
The most wonderful thing for me about having stumbled upon your post Pitbulllady, is validation of what I suspected to be their VERY long lifespans, and a sweet surprise that according to more than one of you, it's even longer than I thought. It's nice to think that little Kholi with be with me for a good long time.
Be Well and God Bless,
Mamata


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## Silberrücken (Mar 5, 2012)

Flickr! seems like an option...  I will definitely check this out! I like the option that lets you disable downloads. ;-)

Mamata, you live just north of me!


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## cacoseraph (Mar 9, 2012)

all media hosts have a nonexclusive usage rights clause, that i have ever seen.  even FB. i believe i checked flickr and DA and they both did, too. youtube does. it is just the "cost" of using free hosting.  if you are worried about that sort of thing you *might* be able to find a free webhost that doesn't have that usage... but usually you have to deal with bandwidth limitations then... so if your pics get even a bit famous the webhost will choke the amount of ppl who can access them down to fit in the bandwidth you agreed to use,


Filistatidae are really almost a mix of araneomorph and mygalomorph.  as has been said they are iteroparitive (make the babies, shed, repeat) just like mygs.  i think their breathing structures are even a sort of transition between araneo and mygalo, but i can' remeber exactly how off the top of my head


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## pitbulllady (Mar 9, 2012)

cacoseraph said:


> all media hosts have a nonexclusive usage rights clause, that i have ever seen.  even FB. i believe i checked flickr and DA and they both did, too. youtube does. it is just the "cost" of using free hosting.  if you are worried about that sort of thing you *might* be able to find a free webhost that doesn't have that usage... but usually you have to deal with bandwidth limitations then... so if your pics get even a bit famous the webhost will choke the amount of ppl who can access them down to fit in the bandwidth you agreed to use,
> 
> 
> Filistatidae are really almost a mix of araneomorph and mygalomorph.  as has been said they are iteroparitive (make the babies, shed, repeat) just like mygs.  i think their breathing structures are even a sort of transition between araneo and mygalo, but i can' remeber exactly how off the top of my head


Like Mygalamorphs, _Filistatidae_ also have fangs that move in a vertical, rather than horizontal, plane, although their chelicerae are actually fixed and cannot move, unlike those of Mygalamorph spiders.  They also lack spinnerettes, and the silk is not sticky, so they fray it with the claws on their rear feet to give it that fuzzy, Velcro-like texture that enables some insect-trapping ability.  Their feet lack lamulae, which means they can't cling to smooth surfaces, making them poor climbers.  They need some degree of roughness to the surface texture in order to climb it.  Even the "turret-like" eye cluster is very similar to that of the Mygalamorph spiders.  And of course, there is the longevity; I honestly don't know how long females can live.  I know I've had mine for almost 13 years and I know of individuals that live around my house that have been here for that long, at least, and both those and the one large female I currently keep were adults when I was first acquainted with them.  I know that they grow VERY slowly, as I have a six-year-old CB specimen who just now can cover the tip of my index finger, while its(not sexed, though I'm thinking female)mother will nearly cover the palm of my hand!  For all I know, these might be able to live as long as _G. roseas_ and many other desert tarantula species.
They really are basically a link between the modern, or "true" spiders, and the primitive Mygalamorph spiders.

pitbulllady

Reactions: Like 1


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## zonbonzovi (Mar 9, 2012)

pitbulllady said:


> They also lack spinnerettes, and the silk is not sticky, so they fray it with the claws on their rear feet to give it that fuzzy, Velcro-like texture that enables some insect-trapping ability.


I just noticed this for the first time the other night.  The female twitches that rear leg incredibly fast!  It's unnerving at first Usually when I see an invertebrate twitching like that there's a landscaping team, insecticide sprayers in hand, nearby.


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## Camden (Mar 10, 2012)

Go to imgur.com, upload your pictures and give us the direct links.


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## Zoltan (Mar 10, 2012)

pitbulllady said:


> They also lack spinnerettes


They _do_ have spinnerets, but they are located in a slightly more forward position. (Without spinnerets and the spigots on them how would the silk emerge from the opisthosoma?)



pitbulllady said:


> They really are basically a link between the modern, or "true" spiders, and the primitive Mygalamorph spiders.


According to the hypotheses I have read, filistatids are not the araneomorphs with the most ancestral characters. For example, take a look at the cladogram in Coddington & Levi (1991): araneomorphs are divided into Paleocribellatae and Neocribellatae, Paleocribellatae is the most basal group of Araneomorphae, and the taxon comprises of the single family Hypochilidae (currently 12 species of 2 genera). Hypochilidae form the sister group of all remaining spiders (currently this means more than 42700 species). Neocribellatae are divided into Austrochiloidea (more plesiomorphic) and Araneoclada. Austrochiloidea is made up of two families: Gradungulidae and Austrochilidae, the two families (25 species in total currently) form the sister group of all the other Neocribellatae, and according to the cladogram, the most basal group of the Neocribellatae is the family Filistatidae, so while they are among the most basal group of the Neocribellatae, the Neocribellatae is not the most plesiomorphic group of Araneomorphae, ergo they (filistatids) are not the most “primitive“ araneomorphs. Now that cladogram in Coddington & Levi might not be completely up to date, but as far as I know the part I quoted above still fits the current consensus.







Above is _Hickmania troglodytes_ (Austrochilidae), a basal araneomorph with two pairs of booklungs.








Above is _Macrogradungula moonya_ (Gradungulidae), another basal araneomorph with two pairs of booklungs. Seeing as having two pairs of booklungs is considered an ancestral character in spiders (found in all mygalomorphs save one species), and filistatids have one pair of booklungs, this is just one example of why these taxa are more closely related to mygalomorphs than filistatids are.

Both photos are property of my friend Tamas Szuts, and they are used here with his permission.

Article referenced:
Coddington, J.A. & H. W. Levi. 1991. Systematics and Evolution of Spiders (Araneae). _Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics_, *22*: 565-592.


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