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This is the biggest damn spider I ever saw in my yard.....is this guy harmless or should I run the other way ?

 

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spiders get a bad rap and do so much good and are often blamed for bites that are something else. In fact a study done a few years back actually found that a good many spider bites that are diagnosed by doctors are wrong.

marc

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I'm wondering if there is an arachnologist on the board.

 

In the fall of 2009, I was fishing Lake Lenore in central Washington. Lake Lenore is about 25 miles north of Moses Lake. It has an island on it that is all rock and is a little more than a 1/2 mile long. It was a warm day and the sun was brutal so I kicked my pontoon boat over into the shade of the island. The walls of the island were covered with a gray material that I at first thought was dried algae from when the water was higher. In looking closer, I discovered it was not algae, but millions of spider webs. In the webs were exoskeletons of, I think, Damsel Fly nymphs. The webs literally covered the west side (and only the west side) of the island. I had never seen anything like that before.

 

I can't remember for sure, but I think that the pictures of the spiders are showing the belly of the spider. They appeared to be inside the web. If you look close at the spider, perhaps you can tell if it is the underside of it.

 

My theory is (and tell me if I am wrong) that the Damsel nymphs swim over to the island when they are about to emerge, crawl up the rocks and get caught in the webs. Since this is a perfect environment for the spiders, they have thrived and multiplied to these massive numbers.

 

I have searched the web looking at spiders until I was blue in the face trying to identify what kind it is. I didn't realize that there were so many different kinds of spiders! They have a body somewhat similar to a Black Widow, but not the markings.

 

Any information you can offer would be greatly appreciated. I am interested as to what they are and if they are poisonous or not. After making this discovery, I have named that island "Spider Island"!

 

Lenore is a great lake to fish. There are some very large Lahonton Cutthroat in that lake.

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I'm wondering if there is an arachnologist on the board.

 

In the fall of 2009, I was fishing Lake Lenore in central Washington. Lake Lenore is about 25 miles north of Moses Lake. It has an island on it that is all rock and is a little more than a 1/2 mile long. It was a warm day and the sun was brutal so I kicked my pontoon boat over into the shade of the island. The walls of the island were covered with a gray material that I at first thought was dried algae from when the water was higher. In looking closer, I discovered it was not algae, but millions of spider webs. In the webs were exoskeletons of, I think, Damsel Fly nymphs. The webs literally covered the west side (and only the west side) of the island. I had never seen anything like that before.

 

I can't remember for sure, but I think that the pictures of the spiders are showing the belly of the spider. They appeared to be inside the web. If you look close at the spider, perhaps you can tell if it is the underside of it.

 

My theory is (and tell me if I am wrong) that the Damsel nymphs swim over to the island when they are about to emerge, crawl up the rocks and get caught in the webs. Since this is a perfect environment for the spiders, they have thrived and multiplied to these massive numbers.

 

I have searched the web looking at spiders until I was blue in the face trying to identify what kind it is. I didn't realize that there were so many different kinds of spiders! They have a body somewhat similar to a Black Widow, but not the markings.

 

Any information you can offer would be greatly appreciated. I am interested as to what they are and if they are poisonous or not. After making this discovery, I have named that island "Spider Island"!

 

Lenore is a great lake to fish. There are some very large Lahonton Cutthroat in that lake.

it looks like another species of orb weaver like said before completely harmless to humans but as your photos show quite the avid hunter

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Do you remember what the web looked like? Orb weavers ... Family (?) Araneidae - have the typical "spider web" - you know, a spiral down to the center. It's been a long long time, but I don't think other families of spiders make that kind of web. So if it doesn't make that kind of web it isn't an orb weaver (how's that for helpful). -E

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No, the web isn't like the standard web as you described. It is a more erratic, wisp like web much like the black widow web. No real geometric pattern at all. I think that is in the cobweb spider family- Theridiidae. Which one I can't identify. It has the same body shape and the web is like a Black Widow. The difference between the Black Widow and the many that I saw at Lenore, is the Black Widow's habitat is in dark damp places. I've seen a lot of those in cemetery vases that are turned upside down in the holder and also in well houses. The ones at Lenore were exposed to the daylight and subject to the hot afternoon sun and wind.

 

One other interesting thing about this is that the webs and spiders are ONLY on the west side of the island. The prevailing wind comes out of the southwest. It makes me think that they live on the west side of the island because the wind and wave action push the nymph into their webs. In the spring the water level drops quickly as the warm weather hits. This leaves the nymphs stranded "high and dry" for the spiders to devour.

 

Here is a video I did of Lenore. It is in two parts. "Spider Island" can be seen in the part #2 video when I panned back with the camera after showing the ducks in the water.

 

 

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Araneidae for certain, but narrowing it down to a specific species is a bit tougher. Ask on arachnoboards.com....there are a couple of guys on there from Washington that do quite a bit of field collecting...I suspect that they could tell you in a heartbeat.

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Thanks for the contact Toirtis, I'll do that. :) I'm really curious as to why they form in such large numbers in that specific area. When I find out more on this I'll post it.

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I got the following email from Dr. Rod Crawford at the University of Washington. Apparently a much closer view is needed to fully identify the spider. Thanks for all of your input.

 

Unfortunately, the images of the spiders in your posted photos are too tiny for me to even be sure what family they are in, let alone what species. The body shape is similar to a cobweb weaver but on the other hand the ventral coloration (if that second shot is indeed a ventral view - hard to tell when the whole body is a few pixels across!) resembles an orbweaver. The webbing, on the other hand, looks more like it might have been made by spiders of the family Dictynidae... It could be that the spiders in the photos did not in fact make most of that webbing - if it is dictynid webbing, the spiders that made it would be much smaller and would be concealed in little silk tunnels.

 

Are you sure that the nymphs you saw were all damselflies? Mayflies would be more numerous in that habitat. In any case, if the exoskeletons were intact that suggests that they may not have been preyed upon, but simply used (old) webbing as a place to hang on to, then left their nymphal skin there while the live adult flew away...

 

You are wrong about black widow habitat preference, Washington populations at least prefer niches that are dark and dry, like abandoned mammal burrows. The spiders that are most common in places like sprinkler control boxes are the false black widows, Steatoda grossa.

 

For future reference, it is easy for me to identify a spider from a specimen, but fantastically difficult from a photo - even a much better one. Spider ID is based on microscopic features, at species level.

 

---Rod Crawford, Burke Museum, Seattle, USA

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I got the following email from Dr. Rod Crawford at the University of Washington. Apparently a much closer view is needed to fully identify the spider. Thanks for all of your input.

 

Unfortunately, the images of the spiders in your posted photos are too tiny for me to even be sure what family they are in, let alone what species. The body shape is similar to a cobweb weaver but on the other hand the ventral coloration (if that second shot is indeed a ventral view - hard to tell when the whole body is a few pixels across!) resembles an orbweaver. The webbing, on the other hand, looks more like it might have been made by spiders of the family Dictynidae... It could be that the spiders in the photos did not in fact make most of that webbing - if it is dictynid webbing, the spiders that made it would be much smaller and would be concealed in little silk tunnels.

 

Are you sure that the nymphs you saw were all damselflies? Mayflies would be more numerous in that habitat. In any case, if the exoskeletons were intact that suggests that they may not have been preyed upon, but simply used (old) webbing as a place to hang on to, then left their nymphal skin there while the live adult flew away...

 

You are wrong about black widow habitat preference, Washington populations at least prefer niches that are dark and dry, like abandoned mammal burrows. The spiders that are most common in places like sprinkler control boxes are the false black widows, Steatoda grossa.

 

For future reference, it is easy for me to identify a spider from a specimen, but fantastically difficult from a photo - even a much better one. Spider ID is based on microscopic features, at species level.

 

---Rod Crawford, Burke Museum, Seattle, USA

 

You know what mate, even after reading Robs email I still thought I had a good chance at cracking it, and iv done my fare share of proper bug ID's and after spending no more than 5 minutes looking through spider ID keys there is like 100000 things I need to see on that damn spider in order to properly ID even what is relatives could possibly be.. The Crawfordinator was right, hope you go back again and grab a few to send to someone or something one day. I find film canisters work great, you know those opaque ones or the black ones, just sharpy marker on the canister that theirs a spider in the damn thing so theirs no surprises later.

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