Story time.
My girlfriend, while I was dating her, had the stereotypical Basement Hang-out that we’d all collect in, load a cord of wood into the ‘fisher’ stove, get it blazing so it was going vloo-vloo-vloo on the vents (pumping). and watch whatever we got from Blockbuster.
Years later, we’re moving her stuff around, someone notices a stain from where we moved the futony couch and looked closer.
Nope. The sheer mass of spider carcasses all in a line looked like some kind of skidmark on the carpet. But it was spider carcasses, their limbs all a-jumble but layered over one another. Look carefully around the edge like there’s a jump-scare coming, and I can see her all tucked up in a nook on the underside of the futon, scarlet hourglass marking and everything. We’d been hanging around this black widow for weeks, probably, long enough for her to absolutely decimate the Eratigena population down there.
That’s really cool! As far as I know, black widows generally won’t fuck with you as long as you don’t fuck with it, so to speak haha. They wanna be left alone in their dark corners doing their thing.
That would be fascinating to see in person!
I saved one of these that was stuck in my bathtub just a couple days ago. Put him/her in the basement with the others.
Awwww yay! Thank you for not putting them outside!
Do they not live well outside?
These bros in particular do best inside of homes! They tend to stick to basements and such, they wanna eat all the pests and stay out of our way. Their other name is the “Aggressive House Spider” though it’s a little outdated as they aren’t very aggressive at all. They do get BIG though and that freaks a lot of people out.
There’s domesticus and giganticus, but the agrestis isn’t “aggressive”: it means “field”, like from the same word as Agriculture. It’s also invasive outside of East Asia.
So keep the little one, keep the giant one, cull the midsized.
Today I learned! Thanks for the info :)
Aggressive?! These little guys are so timid. Must have been named by some spider-phobe.
It would just come back inside, anyway.
PNW corner of the United States. I believe this is a Hobo spider - out looking for a mate during our spider season. I’m happy to be corrected if my little buddy is not one though!
Wow, looks very similar to huntsman spiders in Australia
Definitely a Tegenaria/Eratigena, and the Hobo spider (Tegenaria agrestis) is famously common in your area. But they are very hard to ID to species level.
Contrary to what you might have heard though, both genera are completely harmless.
Here is a short PSA video about that (it’s very old, the guy in the video is(was?) actually the main r/spiders moderator back on reddit).
Contrary to what you might have heard though, both genera are completely harmless.
They keep pests away from my sight very well! I let them be in my basement and only ever see them during autumn when they’re out and about looking for mates :)
Wow, today I learned!
My house often has hobo spiders downstairs and I had always heard the unsupported folk wisdom that they are as dangerous as brown recluses. All the other spiders in my area are harmless, so they were the only one I was afraid of.
Now I know these ones are chill too
Thanks for posting this - what a relief!
This makes me so happy!
I only get orb weavers on Oregon Coast
I love orb weavers! They make the prettiest webs! The only downside is sometimes catching those webs with my face in the mornings haha. They love to make them across pathways.
Me too, spider kisses! You get used to it.
I love these guys so much. I have several in webs around the house keeping me safe from all the scary flies and moths (I have a silly phobia of them)
Oh my gosh Velma!! That’s a cute spider you found, thank you for sharing!! 💚
I’m just happy that there are others who can appreciate the pics! I was so excited to get such close up shots, but rarely do people want to see these kinds of shots in real life hahaha.
I completely understand and I love seeing these kinds of pics!
I have 136 pictures and videos following the life cycle of a single green lynx spider and no one in real life wants to see her 😩 She was such a beautiful lady too!
Here is definitely the place to share them!
I shared some last year in awwwverts, but I’ll share them again here too ☺️
She was such a beautiful lady too!
Aw I bet she was! I love watching my kitchen window spider mommas go through their life cycles :)
