ID this true spider living in my front door frame plz

[hermit]

Hey folks, this spider has been living in the corner of our front door frame for about a month now. I'm happy to have her there as a guest, but I do see we're about to have a few hundred more guests, and before I decide whether to move the sac away from our door frame I wanted to see if someone could ID the species.

Location is southern Vancouver Island, BC (Canada).

 

[Ciphor]

This is a species of Parasteatoda - Common house spiders.

Toooootally harmless, and they play dead the second you disturb them. For some reason, I'm not 100% confident this is Parasteatoda tepidariorum. There is another species that has been popping up all over, Parasteatoda tabulata.

 

[hermit]

Thanks bud. Looks right. I did look into common house spiders, but I didn't see colours matching this one at all, but I see now that there are many variations. The egg sac looks right, though, and the tangled web is also a notable trait she demonstrates (not to mention the body shape is right). I'll let her hatch her babies and they can come in the house and find places to fend for themselves.

 

[Ciphor]

Highly variable. This morph is the least common. Here is an image of a similar one http://bugguide.net/node/view/53362/bgimage

She will lay more egg sacs, P. tepidariorum is a egg laying machine. The egg sac is also distinct among Theridiidae.

 

[John Apple]

yup many color forms...from light to almost black .....awsome captives

 

[hermit]

A couple days ago we witnessed her devour a spider twice her size that must have wandered too close to her egg sac.