Can anyone identify this spider for me please?

[yasminannabelle]

Hi this is the second spider I have found in my house this month and they are in my little girls bedroom, they don't look too friendly. Does anyone have any idea what sort of spider it is and are they a danger to my daughter? They are quite big and have extremely thick legs and bodies, they also look asthough they have a velvety type of coat. Thankyou.

[Geoff F]

Can you give an idea about size, excluding legs; a bit more detailed than quite big. At the moment there are a few possibilities.

Either way, there aren't any 'dangerous' spiders in the UK although there are a small number which can bite people if they become 'threatened'.

[yasminannabelle]

It's actual body was about the size of a 50 pence piece and extremely round, the pincers at the front were quite stubby but extremely thick and darker than the rest of it's body and it had two indentation marks on it's body aswell, it looked really shiny! Glad to hear they aren't dangerous but I don't like the thought of them being in my daughters room, she's only a toddler. We live in an old house and in our cellar there are massive cone shaped spider webs from the ceiling going down into a sort of point at the floor, would that be where they could be nesting by any chance? There are loads of these huge thick webs.

[aeshna5]

I'm not sure what your spider is so will leave that to one of the spider experts that frequent WAB, but the description of the webs in your cellar sound like those of one of the house spider species, Tegenaria sp.

[MattPrince]

The webs sound like house spider webs, but this individual spider looks more compact and the description, and the location makes me wonder if it is scotophaeus blackwalli sometimes called a 'mouse spider'.

As Geoff quite rightly says, none of the UK spiders bite humans by choice, but I'd suggest for your peace of mind, you relocate her (the spider, not the daughter!) a decent distance from the house.

Cheers,
Matt

[MattPrince]

..and bear in mind that some scotophaeus that do not occur in Britain get considerably bigger - and are also called mouse spiders... ours don't get much bigger than the one you've caught.

[yasminannabelle]

Ugh I do not like the look of those spiders on google, but it does look like it's one of those. Unfortunately my partner just put it in a glass and popped it outside the window. The first spider we found was twice the size of the one pictured. I personally wont go near them. Thankyou for your help.

[MattPrince]

Assuming it is (it was only a suggestion) - then you should bear in mind that a lot of the mouse spiders bad press, comes from the Aussie mouse spider - a totally unrelated species, so I wouldn't stress overly.

However.. when relocating spiders, a short walk is required, for me, when moving spiders for a partner, the ideal distance is about.. the nearest pub

[nikolai_avenger]

Looks to me like it could be Drassodes.. It's not Scotaphaeus blackwalli, anyway.

Cheers. Nik.

[yasminannabelle]

So is it normal for these spiders to be in my house as I live in the centre of town and not in the sticks? Glad to hear they aren't dangerous, really put my mind at ease