Help identify this spider?

[jenna01fob]

Today I found a spider in my garden which I am finding difficult to identify on the web.

It had a large, very round and shiny body (slightly smaller than the size of a five pence piece)

It had about 8 or 10 very small dots, dotted on it's shiny body and a very small head.

I found it near among some weeds and dried leaves on the ground.

Any ideas?

[Dogghound]

sound like some species of orb web spider from the family Argiopidae, although its totally impossible to identify without a photo.

[Shadowjewel]

Can you tell me what colour it was? On its abdomen (rear body segment), thorax (the segment next to the head), legs and those dots? What shape and size was the web, and where was it? Where was the spider in relation to the web - was it hiding or waiting in the middle like the garden spider would sometimes? Did the spider have any other distinguishing features, like particularly large jaws, fury legs or long legs?

Without a picture, you need all the info you can get to help figure out a possible ID.

[jenna01fob]

It was black, black as black could be.. No other colours whatsoever ..And shiny like a mobile phone, like a shiny plastic. No fur at all..

The dots on the abdomen were also black and shiny and slightly raised, there were approximately 8 of these of varying sizes.
The head was small and black, no noticeable jaws.

It was a female and the abdomen seemed very bloated, out of proportion, probably full of eggs - It didn't move very fast possible because of this.

It was under a large stone, damp and dark - living with lots of woodlice and other creatures. I didn't see a web at all, though there was a very large bright white egg sack. And what looked like the male (a much smaller and less impressive looking version) near by

[bjblackmore]

Hi,

Did you ever find out what sort of spider this was? We were moving stuff around in our garage today and lifted up a plank of wood to find the same spider you have described. It was very black, all over, huge fat abdomen, that had some black dots on, I think there were about 6. I would have taken a photo, but my other half hates spider (I'm not too keen on them either), so she hit it with the plank. I thought it looked like a black widow, but I know they have red dots on. Having looked around the net a bit, I think this could have been a female false widow spider. This picture looks very close to what we found: False widow or cellar spider, Steatoda grossa - Natural History Museum According the the NHM site, the spider can cause a painful bite - "Sharp pain in toe; began to swell rapidly, became red with throbbing pain. The redness spread to the foot then began to regress after 12 hours." - Kinda glad we squished it now!

Ben

[Venger]

Spiders generally bite in self defense - think of them like bees or wasps.
There is no native spider that can deliver a fatal bite (barring an allergic reaction) so squishing it was a bit extreme.