American House Spider

Description Male 1/8-1/4" (4-5 mm), female 1/4" (5-6 mm). Yellowish brown. Abdomen streaked and splotched with black and gray on sides. Male's legs orangish; female's yellow with black bands.

Food Insects.

Web Irregular, made of sticky strands. Webs catch dust as well as prey and are known as cobwebs.

Life Cycle Female spins pear-shaped brownish silken cocoon around egg mass and hangs it in web. Adult females can live more than a year.

Habitat Sheltered corners of houses, barns, and other buildings.

Black Widow Spider

SIZE: About 1 1/2 inches (38mm) long, 1/4 inch (6.4mm) in diameter

COLOR: Usually shiny black

DESCRIPTION: The female is usually black with a red spot or hourglass- shaped mark on its round abdomen. The male usually has light streaks on its abdomen.

HABITAT: Black widow spiders are common around wood piles, and are frequently encountered when homeowners carry firewood into the house. Also found under eaves, in boxes, outdoor toilets, meter boxes, and other unbothered places.

LIFE CYCLE: Egg sacs are brown, papery, about ½ inch long and oval. They hold from 25 to 900 or more eggs, which have an incubation period of 20 days. Growth requires two to three months, with older females dying in autumn after egg laying.

TYPE OF DAMAGE: The black widow is not aggressive. It will, however, bite instinctively when touched or pressed.

CONTROL: Be very careful when working around areas where black widow spiders may be established. Take proper precautions-wear gloves and pay attention to where you are working. Black widow bites are sharp and painful, and the victim should go to the doctor immediately for treatment. To control the black widow, carefully remove all materials where they might hide. They can be cleaned out of an area simply by knocking down the webs, spiders, and round tan egg sacs with a stick and crushing them underfoot.

INTERESTING FACTS: The female eats the male after mating. She hangs belly upward and rarely leaves the web.

Brown Recluse Spider

SIZE: 1/4 to 3/4 inch (6.4-19.1mm)

COLOR: Golden brown

DESCRIPTION: Brown recluse spiders belong to a group of spiders commonly known as violin spiders or fiddlebacks. This is because of a characteristic fiddle-shaped pattern they have on their head region. The spider is golden brown with the fiddle being dark brown or black. This spider is not hairy and the fiddle pattern is often shiny. They are about 1/4 to 3/4 inch long.

HABITAT: Brown recluse spiders are found primarily in the Midwest. Many cases of bites are reported from Texas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. The edge of its range just reaches the tip of western Virginia, but it occurs rarely in this state. The spider commonly lives in basements and garages of houses and often hides behind boards and boxes. Bites often occur when the spiders hide in towels or old clothes left in those areas.

LIFE CYCLE: Female deposits eggs in off-white silken cases about 1/3 inch in diameter in sheltered, dark areas. Spiderlings emerge in 24-36 days and abandon the egg case. Development is slow, influenced by weather conditions and food availability. They reach maturity in 10 to 12 months and can survive long periods of time without food or water.

TYPE OF DAMAGE: The severity of the bite may vary. The symptoms may vary from no harm at all to a reaction that is very severe. Often there is a systemic reaction within 24-36 hours characterized by restlessness, fever, chills, nausea, weakness, and joint pain. Where the bite occurs there is often tissue death and skin is sloughed off. In some severe cases, a wound may develop that lasts several months.

CONTROL: In all cases, a physician should be notified. If at all possible, kill and take the spider to the physician for positive identification. Individual spiders can be crushed underfoot or sprayed with an aerosol spray. Clean up and remove any potential hiding places.

Important note: Many of the wolf spiders are similar in appearance and have similar markings as the brown recluse. They are large, robust, and hairy and, therefore, can be distinguished from the brown recluse.

INTERESTING FACTS: Spiders are seldom aggressive and bite only when threatened or injured.

 

Cellar Spiders

Cellar Spiders are in the family Pholcidae. Spiders in this family typically have extremely long and skinny legs with small bodies. Common species are usually tan or gray. The web of a cellar spider is usually very messy, similar to the web of a cobweb spider. Like all spiders, cellar spiders have 8 legs, 2 body parts, and fang-like mouthparts called "chelicerae."

SIZE: Body length of adult cellar spiders about 1/4" or less

LIFE CYCLE

Simple metamorphosis: like all spiders, young cellar spiders hatch from eggs and look like tiny adults. They shed their skin as they grow. Females lay a few dozen eggs at a time and wrap them in webbing for protection.

ECOLOGY

Cellar spiders often make their stringy webs indoors, preferring shady corners in basements, attics, barns, and sheds. They feed on small moths, flies, gnats, mosquitoes, and other creatures that are common indoors. When they are not living in buildings, cellar spiders are sometimes found in protected natural areas, including caves and rock piles.

PEST STATUS

Cellar spiders are common in homes, but they typically stay in one place and don't bother people. They are not known to bite.

Cellar spiders are also sometimes called "daddy-long-legs spiders," which is the same name given to the spider-like  harvestmen in the order Opiliones. A widespread myth is that "the daddy-long-legs is the world's most venomous spider." Although it is unclear to which creature this myth is referring, it is not true in either case.

Garden Spider ( Barn Spider)

Description

The Barn Spider is an orb weaver, a spider that spins its web in a circle-type shape. This orb weaver is about 3/4 inch long with a large round abdomen.

It spins a large orb web, hangs its head down in the middle at night and retreats to a nearby crevice during the day.

This spider is a dark brown color, with darker markings on the back of the abdomen. Its legs are slightly covered with whitish hairs.

Habitat

Barn Spiders are found all over the eastern part United States. They can be found on porches near lights, in the corners of doorways, in window frames -- anywhere conducive for constructing the large orb web. You can even find them on the sides of cliffs, in caves, and in barns!

In late afternoon and at night, the barn spider can be seen hanging in the center of its web. During the day, the barn spider will retreat to a nearby crevice only to return to the web the next night.

Food

The Barn Spider preys on flying and crawling insects that become entangled in her orb web. The spider will vibrate or sway the web if she senses that prey may be caught in it.

The web itself is used to wrap the prey and soon becomes full of holes and ragged. After several days, the spider will eat the web, recycle the silk, and construct a new web.

 

St. Andrew's Cross Spider

Description

The Black and Yellow Garden Spider or St Andrew's Cross Spider, sometimes called the Argiope, is a member of the orb weaver family. These are spiders that spin webs in spiral patterns.

The female Argiope is a large, conspicuous spider up to 1-1/8 inch long at maturity. The large abdomen is black with yellow or orange markings. The carapace of the cephalothorax is covered with silvery hairs, and their legs are black with reddish or yellow bands .

There is a large difference in size between the male and female of this spider species. The male is about half the size of the female, and similar but often brighter in color.

Habitat

Black and Yellow Garden Spiders are located all around the United States and even in southern Canada. This spider can be found in gardens or open fields where the large orb web (up to 2 feet wide!) can be spun.

The slightly inclined orb web has a distinctive vertical zigzag design in the center (called stabilimenta). The exact purpose of the stabilimenta is not known, but it has been thought that it may aid in web stabilization, aid in the capture of prey, or prevent birds from flying through it.

The spider hangs its head down in the center of the web

Food

The circular filaments of the orb web are sticky so that the spider may capture small flying insects such as flies, grasshoppers, crickets, wasps, and bees. This spider is diurnal (active in the daytime) and usually hangs head down in the center of the web.

If movement in the web is detected, the spider will often wave or vibrate the web in order to entangle the prey. Entangled prey is immediately wrapped with swaths of silk and bitten with fangs in order to subdue it.

Defense

The coloration, size, and web of this spider at maturity make it conspicuous in the garden. The zigzag design in the center of the web may help to camouflage the spider.

Some scientists theorize that the stabilimenta (zigzag) in the center of the web serves to make the web more easily seen by birds that will then avoid flying through it.

If threatened, the spider may drop off the web to the ground and hide.

Harvestmen

Description

Found in temperate climates, this animal is related to spiders, but is not a true spider. A true spider has two body parts, a cephalothorax and an abdomen.

The Eastern Daddy Longlegs has just one flat, oval body part. They are about 1/8 inch to 1/2 inch long. They have eight legs that are extremely long in comparison to the size of the body.

The Daddy Longlegs moves about on the tips of the legs as if walking on stilts. The name Harvestman comes from the fact that they are seen in great numbers in the fall of the year.

Habitat

 

Harvestmen and Daddy Longlegs are found throughout North America. They prefer to live in leaf foliage, on the trunks of trees, and in shrubbery.

They often congregate in large numbers, particularly in the fall of the year.

Food

 

Daddy Longlegs feed on live or dead insects and invertebrates such as flies, aphids, snails, and earthworms. They also feed on decaying vegetation.

They are nocturnal and do their scavenging for food at night.

Defense

Harvestmen have the ability to break off a leg if threatened. The leg will continue to twitch in front of the predator while the Harvestman escapes.

Some species have stink glands that release an unpleasant odor that repels predators, but they do not have any venom.

Since they resemble spiders, the Daddy Longlegs "mimics" the characteristics of an insect predator. If disturbed, it will wave its second pair of legs in the air.

 

Jumping Spider

Description

Could you ever call a spider "cute"? Well, the audacious jumping spider, Phidippus audax, would certainly qualify!

This alert little jumper is a keen-sighted hunter. It stalks its prey and leaps upon it! It is one of the largest of the Jumping Spiders.

The male can be 1/2 inch long, and the female can be up to 5/8 inch long.

It has a hairy body, and its abdomen is black with white spots. The front pair of legs has black and white stripes and its handsome jaws are a "metallic" green! Two of its eight eyes are very large for its size.

Habitat

The Daring Jumping Spider can be found in the United States from the Atlantic Coast to the Rocky Mountains.

Look for this spider in Virginia woods, grassy areas, and in gardens around fallen leaves and tree limbs, stones, and flowers.

Sometimes it even wanders inside houses or will land from its jumps on the sides of tree trunks!

Food

 

This hunting spider is entertaining to watch. It stalks its insect prey through the grass, leaping 40 or more times its length to capture its food.

It uses a silken dragline as a safety line before jumping. It sticks the dragline on an object, leaps, and if it misses its prey, can recover by crawling back up the dragline.

Defense

This spider's black and white coloration helps it to blend into crevices.

Its ability to jump great distances is a good defense as well as offense because it can readily escape danger by jumping quickly away.

Its use of its dragline as a safety line helps protect the spider from "hard landings" if it should miss its mark.

Grass Spider

Description

The Grass Spider is light brown in color, with darker brown stripes on its cephalothorax and its abdomen.

Its body is slender and the male is 5/8 inch long. The female is 3/4 inch long and has very large rear spinnerets.

The Grass Spider is a funnel web weaver, meaning that it belongs to the family of spiders that spins a web that covers plants like a sheet with one end shaped like a funnel.

Habitat

The Grass Spider is found almost everywhere in North America! It lives around grassy areas, stone fences, and small shrubs.

It builds its web down in crevices, under stones, or between leaves or twigs (often in "leaf litter").

This spider tends to stay in one location, and as it grows, its web increases in size until the sheet extends over a large area.

Food

The Grass Spider waits inside of its funnel for small crawling or flying insects like crickets, ants, and grasshoppers.

When its prey walks across the sheet-like portion of its web, it can feel the vibrations "telegraphed" by the insect.

The GrassSpider then dashes out of the funnel to grab its prey and drag it back down into the funnel for its feast!

Defense

Although the Grass Spider likes to hide from both predators and prey down in its funnel, it always "plans" an escape route from predators when it builds its web.

The funnel part of the web is open at both ends. So, if it is threatened, the spider can escape out the "back door!"

Wolf Spider

Description

Wolf spiders have a stout, heavy body shape, and fat legs. They are usually brown in color and may have white stripes.

Size may vary from 1/2 inch to 1-1/2 inches.

There are eight well developed eyes, placed in a distinct pattern. There is a row of four small eyes. There are two large eyes above the four small eyes. Two more smaller eyes look straight upward.

Habitat

Wolf Spiders are found on the ground in open fields throughout the United States and southern Canada.

Many Wolf Spiders are diurnal, meaning that they are active and hunt for prey during the day. Often they are found resting under leaves or stones.

However, some species dig a burrow, line it with silk, and lurk there during the day waiting for prey to pass close, and actively hunt at night (nocturnal).

Food

Wolf Spiders don't spin webs to catch their prey. Rather, they are hunters that run down their prey and capture it, just like a real wolf.

Wolf Spiders have good eyesight compared to other spiders. The wolf spider can run fast and quickly pounce on its prey, and bite it with its powerful jaws.

The Wolf Spider eats many kinds of small insects, including crickets, grasshoppers, earwigs, flies, and ants.

Defense

The brown coloration helps these spiders blend in with the environment. They hide under stones and leaves for protection.

Some dig deep burrows with the entrances camouflaged with sticks and twigs.

This spider is keen sighted so that it can successfully stalk its prey. It is also very sensitive to vibrations.