cobweb spider

Common House Spider

My garage door looks pretty clean from a distance, but upon inspection it has a couple dozen, probably, of these little spiders keeping the local mosquito, gnat, and ant population down (thank you!) A ludicrous number of species are lumped under the name “common house spider”, but these particular individuals are comb-footed or cobweb spiders…

This little lady (about 5mm long) is a cobweb spider (Theridiidae sp., possibly Theridion varians, although the geographic range is wrong for that). She lives on my garage door, and I’ve photographed her a couple times “posing” with that Asian tramp snail (Bradybaena similaris) shell. This morning she had produced a beautiful egg sac of…

Southeastern Social Cobweb Spider

Meet Anelosimus studiosus, the southeastern social cobweb spider. This minuscule (7mm) speck on a car window turned out to be a member of one of only 23 social species out of approximately 38,000 known species of spiders. Their behavior varies by region, and in Florida they’re relatively rarely social, but in, say, Texas, you can…