Can you identify this spider

June 12, 2007 6:05 AM

Can you identify this spider?

Found this guy in a sink, has some crazy looking pincers on his front two 'arms?' Curious because my wife has an inch wide swollen bite on her leg. Doctor said it was a brown recluse bite which is silly seeing as they don't even live in California but wondering if this guy could be the culprit.

posted by zeoslap to pets & animals (8 comments total)

The whatsthatbug website has a similar critter called a Cream House Spider on this page, about 3/4ths of the way down. It also mentions that they're known to bite humans.
posted by jquinby at 6:57 AM on June 12, 2007

:::runs shrieking - nuke it from orbit!::::

Ok. These guys at UC Riverside have a "If it's not a brown recluse, what is it?" site here. A discussion on the lack of brown recluse spiders in CA - especially norther, coastal CA, is here - there's a graf near the end that discusses violin spiders, which are native to CA and can be misidentified as brown recluses. If no one chimes in with a definitive-sounding ID, you could do worse than email the UCR folks and ask them.

(is it dead?)
posted by rtha at 7:00 AM on June 12, 2007

I'm from California and we used to call those "Wolf" spiders. Don't know the scientific name though.
posted by zenpop at 7:13 AM on June 12, 2007

Does it create dense funnel-shaped webs in bushes? There's a lot of those around Chicago in the summer, and your photos resemble those. I know they're not brown recluses, FWIW.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 7:22 AM on June 12, 2007

In order for it to be a brown recluse, it needs to have six eyes, in a half-moon shape.

Those were all found in my house. We and the kids have been living with them for a few years and not been bitten. I even saw a cat bat one around the bathroom for several minutes and be fine. Recluses don't generally bite unless you're squashing them or something.
posted by Addlepated at 7:27 AM on June 12, 2007

I'm from Missouri, and that doesn't quite look like what we called "Wolf" spiders, or jumping spiders. They tended to be lower to the ground and could jump like nobodies business. Not that helps with this one, though.
posted by shinynewnick at 7:35 AM on June 12, 2007

The pincers are pedipalps. It's a boy spider. It might be a Hobo Spider (wikipedia link included for relative objectivity if not ultimate scientific accuracy--there are a lot of hysterical hobo spider web pages out there).
posted by cardboard at 7:41 AM on June 12, 2007

I'm pretty sure it is indeed the Cream House Spider/Yellow Sac Spider. The bite my wife got matches the description perfectly and a lot of the pics look very similar. <Shudders>

The spider was squished about five minutes ago after I told my wife that it was probably a yellow sac.

Way to go MeFi :)
posted by zeoslap at 7:43 AM on June 12, 2007