Can Anyone Identify This Spider From a Description?

My son and I were leaving a restaurent and spotted an obviously foreign spider in the doorway. My guess is that it was delivered along with some fruit to the restaurent.

It was shaped like an Orb spider, about 2.5 inches long, including the legs. The colour of it was black; not black as in the absence of colour, but black as in a vivid black! Across the back of the abdomen was a clearly defined white rectangular stripe (I was amusingly reminded of a Fresian Cow). The front legs were bright red at the tips, and gradually became darker closer to the body.

I'm really curious as to its origin, I've searched for hours on the internet, but cannot identify it. If anyone can help that'd be great!

False Widow? www.uksafari.com...

reply to post by argentus


Sadly that's not it. The shape is similar, but the colour and size is wrong. Thanks for trying though!

reply to post by Insomniac


Are you in Essex, England as your profile indicates and is that where you saw the spider in question?

Sorry I should have made it clear! Yes I am in Essex, England and that's where I saw the spider.

I would suggest eliminating any UK species first.

If you do not see anything there then move on to more exotic types.

This LINK may also be useful.

edit last link

[edit on 12-6-2008 by sherpa]

reply to post by sherpa


Thanks for link, I had a look but no luck. I've looked at literally hundreds of pics of spiders over the last couple of months (I'm arachnophobic - so it took some effort!) but I've have had no luck whatsoever.

Do you see a BROWN spider in the UK spiders link that looks like it?

I ask, because there's the occasional melatonin mutant. Sometimes you get albinos, other times you get melanin-heavy creatures.

No, I don't see anything there that resembles it at all. I have to add that the white rectangular shape going across the back of its abdomen was really well defined - the edges were as sharp as if it had been sprayed on with a stencil and took up about 20% of the overall area.

reply to post by Insomniac


could be something not yet discovered. spiders out populate humans by 1000 folds.

on avarage one acre of land hold 2,000,000 spiders. there is no way we have found them all yet.

which brings the question, how many bugs would have to be in an acre to feed 2 million spiders?

edit to add: sorry for providing those numbers i did that before i read you were arachnophobic. 2 million spiders with in .25 square mile's its un thinkable

[edit on 15pmu82007 by DaleGribble]

Don't worry about the arachnophobia thing, I'm no where near as bad as I used to be! One thing about a phobia is that it leads to a fascination of the subject - so the stats are quite interesting. I enjoy camping and never leave my tent undone anyway!

reply to post by Insomniac

Would it be possible for you to draw it and post it here?
That might help.

THere's no white stripe but is it close to what you saw.

By the way, is he stripe vertical or horizontal?





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[edit on 12-6-2008 by Jbird]

A red Widow perhaps?
Red Widow Spider
Widows (black/red/brown) tend to have that very bright glossy black color that it sounds like you saw. They are very distinct looking spiders, which you only need to see once to remember for the rest of your life.

reply to post by Insomniac


It is an interesting search we have here, I did locate this site:

jorgenlissner.dk...

It has almost 2400 images of spiders, maybe you could locate the one that you encountered in those pics

Hi Miguelbmx, Tuebor and Defcon5

This is a close approximation done on paintbox. The big diference is that the front legs gradiated to black from the 'knee' up rather than changing abruptly. The black and white on the abdomen was an abrupt and sharp change though. Defcon5 - Please tell me this wasn't a Black Widow!



[edit on 12/6/08 by Insomniac for spelling]

[edit on 12/6/08 by Insomniac]

[edit on 12-6-2008 by Jbird]

Not sure about your spider, but check out the brown recluse bites aftermath suffered by this person.

google

[edit on 12-6-2008 by Jbird]

repost link to brown recluse



[edit on 12-6-2008 by Jbird]

another reason I hate google. here's a good link to brown recluse

thefuntimesguide.com...

reply to post by imd12c4funn


OMG! That's horrible! I'm really glad we don't get them in the UK! Are they really common in the states or are they quite rare?