Identify this spider
Posted by Manuel Patino on June 24, 2008
Q: This big fellow made a nest or hideout near my back door. it's about 2" in diameter including legs. It's brown in color and fairly slender. It's body is about 1" long. I cannot tell if he's built a web of some kind. However, he hides in a little crevasse in the rock wall. He (or she) comes out at night and in the dark. When I turn the lights on it freezes in place and generally does not run to hide unless it perceives movement or noise to close to it. It's habitat could be considered indoors. His nest is in an inside wall between my garage and the house itself. I could post a nice picture of it but I don't see an option... here is a web album with it's picture: picasaweb.google.com
State: Georgia
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A: It took me a bit of searching but I believe your spider is one of the Gnaphosid spiders - can't be sure exactly which one. There are well over 100 species of spiders in this family in North America and these are not poisonous so no worries there. As you already have determined, these spiders are nocturnal and hide in crevices during the day.
Although spiders can be a bit scary, these predators are really good insect killers so having this spider at your home will certainly reduce the insect population. Thanks for writing.
John Wiessinger ( June 24, 2008)