Please help me identify this spider!

Pixy22 · #1 (**permalink**) 03-08-2006, 09:26 AM

Hi, I found this spider in the house this morning, its body is about 17mm long and it has a shiny reddish brown thorax and a slightly furry darker brown abdomen. It's not like anything we've found before and the kids and me have tried looking it up - the closest we can see is that it's perhaps a tube web spider. What does anyone else think? I hope the picture is clear enough.

Thanks

GRH · #2 (**permalink**) 03-08-2006, 09:48 AM

My first guess would be Amaurobius ferox.

Spider's aren't the easiest group to ID from photos - about 70% of the British fauna require microscopic examination to get to species level reliably.

Greg

Pixy22 · #3 (**permalink**) 03-08-2006, 07:07 PM

Thanks Greg! I followed up your amaurobius ferox suggestion, and it certainly seemed to match quite nicely. Looking at those also led me on to a picture of a clubiona reclusa, and I think perhaps that was an even closer match. I see what you mean about needing to look at them through a microscope though for a proper id.

thanks for your help

Tiggrx · #4 (**permalink**) 03-08-2006, 07:13 PM

Or maybe a Mouse Spider (Scotophaeus blackwalli)

GRH · #5 (**permalink**) 04-08-2006, 07:23 AM

I've changed my mind! Tiggerx suggestion is much more likely, and makes me ashamed I didn't think of it.

Greg

Pixy22 · #6 (**permalink**) 05-08-2006, 09:35 AM

Thanks for all your help! I looked at a couple of pictures of mouse spiders and I think tiggerx is right too! I see that they're pretty common in the uk, but I'm fairly sure I haven't seen one before now. Anyway it was great to arrive at an answer, especially as it showed my kids how asking the right people for help can work (we home educate them and want to encourage their abilities to research the answers to their questions themselves)!

Thanks again