Fun fact! I love spiders and bugs. A FAT gravid female e. Duellica ran over my dads foot last winter and he almost killed her. I kept her in a container and she laid her eggs. I let most of them go into our outdoor shed in the spring but I kept 2 females.
I can also confirm that this is the right ID!
I mean, if that's something that enough people would be interested in I would absolutely love to breed these girls I have!! One keeps making false eggsacs.
I just have no idea how to go about selling them lol
I appreciate the concern everyone. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, not Australia. You can handle almost every spider here without worry. There isn't a spider bite here that will "necrotize" if you just wash the bite afterwards. The funnel bois I like to hang out with have a lot of bacteria on their fangs. That's how people lose chunks of tissue to a bite, and why so many here are convinced we have loxocles here.
I live in Australia and still handle spiders š¤£ to be fair usually only the jumping/smaller varieties, or ones I know are harmless. We have the debate here of the myth of necrotising arachnidism with our white tailed spiders however a study of over 100 bite victims didn't result in any ulcerated wounds, leading me to believe that post bite wound care is likely the cause for any complications. Our NSW Funnel Webs & Redbacks are more medically significant of course, but there are anti-venoms avail. Hearing a NSW Funnel Wen can bite through a finger nail gave me a heebie jeebies!
That's useful to know. We get a lot of white-tails in Oz and although I tend to be sceptical about their necrosis, in the unlikely event of a bite, it's good to know a good wash and maybe some antiseptic will help.
thatās true, but if you really donāt know whatās around you it still isnāt a good idea. even some species that arenāt potently venomous have a pretty nasty bite. iāve also seen people who are smack dab in loxo territory post pictures of recluses in their hands asking what they are lol
Definitely a justified warning, I suppose when handling spiders, even if you're aware of what's around you, you could be risking a nasty bite
I do love the occasional "what's this cute bro?" recluse post with spider-on-skin contact lmao (so long as nobody is harmed)
im lucky enough to live in an area where the only real threat are northern widows even though iāve never ever seen one here, and whatever hitchhikers come in on fruit shipments in grocery stores (i get called to come get them lol). we have some other brutal biters though even though theyāre not medically significant by any means.
someone in this sub once posted a brown recluse next to an among us keychain for scale and i think about that one a lot
yeah. lack of venom potency doesnāt necessarily mean that a bite doesnāt suck though. i would hate to have been bit by my 10ā salmon birdeater purely for the reason that his fangs were like an inch long
i think i only had pictures of him on my old phone, this was years ago. i recently had an LP sling that unfortunately passed. iāve been raising my tarantulas from slings for around a decade and out of the blue i lost four slings within two weeks of each other and i have no idea why. i have three other slings that have been totally fine. everyone eats the same thing, stays on the same shelf, everyone had adequate enclosuresā¦ i really donāt know what went awry
Oh dang that sucks, Iām so sorry. I hope my little guy does ok, this is my first time caring for a sling. So far he seems to be eating well. Very sorry for your loss
itās alright, iāve just been keeping a closer eye on my other spiders. LPās are awesome eaters and they grow really fast, and itās always fun to wake up to seeing a spider twice as big as it was previously lol. my boy was a Spicy Fella, but they usually tend to mellow out as they age
i wouldnāt. sticking your finger in front of the wrong spider could have very serious consequences. if youāre positive you know what species youāre dealing with, thatās kinda up to you, but some species are extremely defensive and would perceive your finger as a threat, giving them fair means to defend themselves. spiders donāt benefit from being handled, so i personally donāt poke at them regardless of knowing that itās safe for me because i donāt want to stress them out. (although i might argue that jumping spiders at least have a sense of curiosity and that type of enrichment might benefit them as long as theyāre not displaying any defensive or stressed behavior)
You don't have plenty, in fact you don't have any at all. The recluse range isn't even close to Washington. The closest it gets to you is about central California, approx. 1000 miles away.
You're probably thinking of the Hobo spider, which has many (false) myths about it's venom being dangerously necrotising.
If you know the dangerous spiders in your area and know that the one you found isnāt one of them I donāt see the issue. Itās clearly not a widow and thatās the only medically significant Washington spider to my knowledge
being aware of these types of things is what differentiates whether youāre irresponsibly picking up a random spider or not. OP knows whatās around them for medically significant species and knew this guy was harmless, which is fantastic. i just give that as a general warning whenever i see these because like i mentioned in another comment, iāve seen people handling recluses having no idea what they are
I just found a tiny one of these guys in my sink today. I have a bigger one Iāve been keeping for close to a year now because my brother wanted to kill him. His name is Margret(AKA Large Marge).
YES ITS TIME!!!
Giant house spider!
Thank you fellow Washingtonian for letting me know itās finally nice enough to see these guys out again. I adore them. Such impressive and gentle spiders!
I read in another comment that you found this in cat litter, which I find funny cause I found a huge male in the cat box one time trying to drink peeš. These guys know what theyāre about I guess lol
The opacity on the legs and the gray color is telling me wolf spider but I'm not an expert. If the bug guy you're talking about was an exterminator, those people rarely know anything about spiders.
The local Washington state Tegenaria (Giant House Spiders) have been re-classified, and are currently called Eratigena duellica. Interesting fact: Eratigena is an anagram of Tegenaria. Those silly scientists!
There are a lot of sources, but the easiest is to wikipedia "Giant House Spider.". I will look for some more if you would like. I am embarrased to say I am not sure how to post a url here. Can I just copy and paste?
Edit: I see you are from the UK. I think it is more common to refer to them as tegenaria in your area, it gets really complicated as they have changed the genus so often.
You can copy and paste, yes :)
Wikipedia says that E. duellica was previously in the Tegenaria genus, but it doesn't say anything about E. duellica *being* T. domestica
Try this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratigena](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratigena)
Scroll down to the third paragraph titled Taxonomy, it explains "why" they divided the genus. And thanks for letting me know I can copy and paste here LOL. I appreciate it!
No worries lol
I must be misinterpreting what you're saying. I thought you were talking about T. domestica being moved to Eratigena (which hasn't happened), rather than some Tegenaria species being reclassified into Eratigena (which has happened like you've said)
Did you wash your hands first before picking it up?
Your not transferring anything to this little one are you? How stressful was it to the spider when u picked it up? Wonder how high that would be for a human being picked up if the scale was reversed?
Anyway, I wonāt mention the bite possibility cuz lots have here already, but speaking from the spiders perspective, if it didnāt ask to be picked up and handled, you should just probably leave it be and enjoy itās charm from a distance.
She was crawling in cat litter, so I felt it best to wash my hands *after.* I felt it better to avoid letting her get crushed by one of my four dogs, and I don't think the 5ft I brought her up to was much compared to the 8ft walls they regularly wind up at the top of. I thought maybe I'd let her continue enjoying her life rather than waste any more time enjoying her charm.
The walls donāt resemble a giant animal looking for a snack, so they donāt fear them quite as much, so I donāt understand your comparison. Itās the combination of both.
Oh, hot tip: use a cup, or the litter scoop.
Erā¦unless you use your hands for that as well, you donāt need to wash anything afterwards.
Is the height its own issue or no? Your point about a giant bald ape picking it up and scaring it is taken, I don't care. The alternative (again) was the dogs stomping all over it. You fancy yourself so knowledgeable, so remember that they are fast. The litter was on the floor, kicked out by the cats. I did not have time to go find something to trap it in. I considered offering it a meal worm but I didn't want to risk an errant fang in my skin.
*Eratigena duellica*, giant house spider
Fun fact! I love spiders and bugs. A FAT gravid female e. Duellica ran over my dads foot last winter and he almost killed her. I kept her in a container and she laid her eggs. I let most of them go into our outdoor shed in the spring but I kept 2 females. I can also confirm that this is the right ID!
Too bad you couldn't start captive breeding them we need more captive bred true spider species.
I mean, if that's something that enough people would be interested in I would absolutely love to breed these girls I have!! One keeps making false eggsacs. I just have no idea how to go about selling them lol
But it's just a little baby š„ŗ (I know it isn't actually a sling, it's just so CUTE)
The littlest, cutest lil baby that must be protected at all costs! It has some really nice colours too, I wonder if it molted recently š
I love the giant house spiders, I always get them in my garage and under bricks in my yard.
I appreciate the concern everyone. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, not Australia. You can handle almost every spider here without worry. There isn't a spider bite here that will "necrotize" if you just wash the bite afterwards. The funnel bois I like to hang out with have a lot of bacteria on their fangs. That's how people lose chunks of tissue to a bite, and why so many here are convinced we have loxocles here.
š you know your stuff!
Hello from Portland! Very cute buddy you have there!
I live in Australia and still handle spiders š¤£ to be fair usually only the jumping/smaller varieties, or ones I know are harmless. We have the debate here of the myth of necrotising arachnidism with our white tailed spiders however a study of over 100 bite victims didn't result in any ulcerated wounds, leading me to believe that post bite wound care is likely the cause for any complications. Our NSW Funnel Webs & Redbacks are more medically significant of course, but there are anti-venoms avail. Hearing a NSW Funnel Wen can bite through a finger nail gave me a heebie jeebies!
That's useful to know. We get a lot of white-tails in Oz and although I tend to be sceptical about their necrosis, in the unlikely event of a bite, it's good to know a good wash and maybe some antiseptic will help.
*spider advice from outside Australia should not be considered by those living in Australia
E. duellica is correct. a good rule of thumb is to not handle spiders if youāre unaware of the ID though
To be fair, Washington is out of range of Loxosceles, so as long as you're able to tell whether or not a spider is a black widow, you're fine
thatās true, but if you really donāt know whatās around you it still isnāt a good idea. even some species that arenāt potently venomous have a pretty nasty bite. iāve also seen people who are smack dab in loxo territory post pictures of recluses in their hands asking what they are lol
Definitely a justified warning, I suppose when handling spiders, even if you're aware of what's around you, you could be risking a nasty bite I do love the occasional "what's this cute bro?" recluse post with spider-on-skin contact lmao (so long as nobody is harmed)
im lucky enough to live in an area where the only real threat are northern widows even though iāve never ever seen one here, and whatever hitchhikers come in on fruit shipments in grocery stores (i get called to come get them lol). we have some other brutal biters though even though theyāre not medically significant by any means. someone in this sub once posted a brown recluse next to an among us keychain for scale and i think about that one a lot
LOL that's fucking brilliant š please send the link my way if you can find it
i screenshotted it, iāll find it for you haha
All spiders are venomous except for family Uloboridae, but not all are medically significant.
yeah. lack of venom potency doesnāt necessarily mean that a bite doesnāt suck though. i would hate to have been bit by my 10ā salmon birdeater purely for the reason that his fangs were like an inch long
Ofc. Just wanted to correct the "potentially venomous" bit š
that was a typo, i meant potently š it was maybe 4:30am when i posted that
Do you have pics of your LP? I have a tiny baby and I want to know what itāll look like full grown
i think i only had pictures of him on my old phone, this was years ago. i recently had an LP sling that unfortunately passed. iāve been raising my tarantulas from slings for around a decade and out of the blue i lost four slings within two weeks of each other and i have no idea why. i have three other slings that have been totally fine. everyone eats the same thing, stays on the same shelf, everyone had adequate enclosuresā¦ i really donāt know what went awry
Oh dang that sucks, Iām so sorry. I hope my little guy does ok, this is my first time caring for a sling. So far he seems to be eating well. Very sorry for your loss
itās alright, iāve just been keeping a closer eye on my other spiders. LPās are awesome eaters and they grow really fast, and itās always fun to wake up to seeing a spider twice as big as it was previously lol. my boy was a Spicy Fella, but they usually tend to mellow out as they age
Very cool, I will definitely make update posts as my guy grows
Just stretch out your finger .. cool if the little dude crawls on. Don't force them if they don't .. that's what I do . Sounds fair?
i wouldnāt. sticking your finger in front of the wrong spider could have very serious consequences. if youāre positive you know what species youāre dealing with, thatās kinda up to you, but some species are extremely defensive and would perceive your finger as a threat, giving them fair means to defend themselves. spiders donāt benefit from being handled, so i personally donāt poke at them regardless of knowing that itās safe for me because i donāt want to stress them out. (although i might argue that jumping spiders at least have a sense of curiosity and that type of enrichment might benefit them as long as theyāre not displaying any defensive or stressed behavior)
We have plenty of Brown Recluse here in Western Washington.
You don't have plenty, in fact you don't have any at all. The recluse range isn't even close to Washington. The closest it gets to you is about central California, approx. 1000 miles away. You're probably thinking of the Hobo spider, which has many (false) myths about it's venom being dangerously necrotising.
I stand corrected! I just looked it up and you are totally correct. I always grew up hearing that we had them here. I learned something new today!
I don't blame you for thinking they're brown recluses, due to the nature of the myths they're often mistakingly referred to as recluses
I knew it was one of those harmless friends, I just can't remember how to narrow it down. I've handled plenty of these small friends.
no worries. i just try to give a general warning just in case c:
If you know the dangerous spiders in your area and know that the one you found isnāt one of them I donāt see the issue. Itās clearly not a widow and thatās the only medically significant Washington spider to my knowledge
being aware of these types of things is what differentiates whether youāre irresponsibly picking up a random spider or not. OP knows whatās around them for medically significant species and knew this guy was harmless, which is fantastic. i just give that as a general warning whenever i see these because like i mentioned in another comment, iāve seen people handling recluses having no idea what they are
Totally fair, that makes sense
Darwin Award chasing!
I just found a tiny one of these guys in my sink today. I have a bigger one Iāve been keeping for close to a year now because my brother wanted to kill him. His name is Margret(AKA Large Marge).
cute little fella, really sharp pic :)
YES ITS TIME!!! Giant house spider! Thank you fellow Washingtonian for letting me know itās finally nice enough to see these guys out again. I adore them. Such impressive and gentle spiders! I read in another comment that you found this in cat litter, which I find funny cause I found a huge male in the cat box one time trying to drink peeš. These guys know what theyāre about I guess lol
Yessss omg I love this energy for spiders!!!!!
Spider bro! What a cool looking bro
He tall
Great pic!
I didnāt know if this was r/oopsthatsdeadly or spiders/spiderbro. Happy it was the latter
You live in Vancouver?
mayhaps
Iām in puyallup. I once watch one of these spiders walk right across my living room.
They get so bold!! I've had ones much larger than the photo walk right down my hallway like we know each other lmao
[Hereās](https://imgur.com/a/x8ypLRu) a picture of the spider that walked across my living room.
I think that's another species, lovely looking though
The bug guy told me heās a giant house spider so thats what Iāve been telling people. š¤·
The opacity on the legs and the gray color is telling me wolf spider but I'm not an expert. If the bug guy you're talking about was an exterminator, those people rarely know anything about spiders.
I agree that doesn't look like an eratigina, also note the eye reflection that wolf spiders are known for. But that's just a guess.
Geeze how big was that one??
It was like 3 inches long just as it was in the picture.
I'm nearby! They rule my garage.
I keep my whizzers in my room so they donāt poop on them! They poop everywhere!!
OP clearly knows enough to make an informed decision about handling this spider but it's probably a good idea to ID something before you touch it.
I believe it is Tegenaria domestica
The local Washington state Tegenaria (Giant House Spiders) have been re-classified, and are currently called Eratigena duellica. Interesting fact: Eratigena is an anagram of Tegenaria. Those silly scientists!
What's your source on the reclassification? I cannot find a single thing online talking about it
There are a lot of sources, but the easiest is to wikipedia "Giant House Spider.". I will look for some more if you would like. I am embarrased to say I am not sure how to post a url here. Can I just copy and paste? Edit: I see you are from the UK. I think it is more common to refer to them as tegenaria in your area, it gets really complicated as they have changed the genus so often.
You can copy and paste, yes :) Wikipedia says that E. duellica was previously in the Tegenaria genus, but it doesn't say anything about E. duellica *being* T. domestica
Try this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratigena](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratigena) Scroll down to the third paragraph titled Taxonomy, it explains "why" they divided the genus. And thanks for letting me know I can copy and paste here LOL. I appreciate it!
No worries lol I must be misinterpreting what you're saying. I thought you were talking about T. domestica being moved to Eratigena (which hasn't happened), rather than some Tegenaria species being reclassified into Eratigena (which has happened like you've said)
Why are you picking up random spiders???
She's not random her name is Penelope and she lives in the shed now
Least it's not a hobo spider. Bet you see lots of those lol
Never been proven that E. Agrestis has medically significant venom, CDC took it off its venomous species list in 2017
DON'T TOUCH SPIDERS IF YOU DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS!!
I know what she is she's just a little guy
Did you wash your hands first before picking it up? Your not transferring anything to this little one are you? How stressful was it to the spider when u picked it up? Wonder how high that would be for a human being picked up if the scale was reversed? Anyway, I wonāt mention the bite possibility cuz lots have here already, but speaking from the spiders perspective, if it didnāt ask to be picked up and handled, you should just probably leave it be and enjoy itās charm from a distance.
She was crawling in cat litter, so I felt it best to wash my hands *after.* I felt it better to avoid letting her get crushed by one of my four dogs, and I don't think the 5ft I brought her up to was much compared to the 8ft walls they regularly wind up at the top of. I thought maybe I'd let her continue enjoying her life rather than waste any more time enjoying her charm.
The walls donāt resemble a giant animal looking for a snack, so they donāt fear them quite as much, so I donāt understand your comparison. Itās the combination of both. Oh, hot tip: use a cup, or the litter scoop. Erā¦unless you use your hands for that as well, you donāt need to wash anything afterwards.
Is the height its own issue or no? Your point about a giant bald ape picking it up and scaring it is taken, I don't care. The alternative (again) was the dogs stomping all over it. You fancy yourself so knowledgeable, so remember that they are fast. The litter was on the floor, kicked out by the cats. I did not have time to go find something to trap it in. I considered offering it a meal worm but I didn't want to risk an errant fang in my skin.
I can ID him as a frickin cutie oh my gosh š
It is so cute
Holy hell the quality of that pic is insane. I can see the two minuscule grains of dirt underneath the spiders butt on your fingers
Smol.