Funnel Web Weaver

By Corey • August 29, 2007 • 6 comments

Earlier this month I found and photographed this spider in my grandmother’s backyard. I finally got around to trying to figure out what it was today by searching obsessively through web page after web page. Well, I think I mostly figured it out, narrowing it down to its family, the Agelenidae, more commonly referred to as Grass Spiders, House Spiders or Funnel Web Weavers (no relation to the poisonous ones in Australia).

There are over 400 North American species in the family and I’m certainly not going to try to figure out which one it is. But if you know, please feel free to let the rest of us know in the comments (also let us know if I managed to get the family wrong!). If not, enjoy the pics!

spider

spider side view

• Tags: Bugs, saugerties, spiders

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About the Author

Corey

Corey is a lifelong upstate New Yorker who recently took the plunge and moved to the city. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list and broke the magical 300 barrier in New York State in 2007 by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative. He lives near Forest Park in Queens with Daisy and their two indoor cats, Hunter and B.B.

6 Responses to “Funnel Web Weaver”

Susannah Aug 30th, 2007 at 3:10 am

Have you checked BugGuide? Here’s one like yours, Agelenopsis. A male; yours would be, too, because he has the same enlarged “mittens”.
Stephanie Aug 30th, 2007 at 3:41 pm

I cant wait to put one of these under sean’s pillow. he’ll squeal like ned flanders!
Corey Aug 30th, 2007 at 4:31 pm

@Susannah: Thanks for the link…they do look alike.

@Steph: If you do, take video of it and put it on Youtube…
Stephanie Aug 31st, 2007 at 10:45 am

hahahah he’ll kill me if i did that. he would probably record me snoring and blast it everywhere to get even. =P
Patrick Sep 4th, 2007 at 1:51 pm

Have you ever seen those Australian funnel web spiders? Yikes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Atrax_robustus.jpg
jt mckenna Sep 21st, 2008 at 7:57 pm

hey I was out in the woods today just outside of victoria bc and I saw this huge spider it was black with white strips on its legs and I was wondering what kind of spider it is it was big hope u can tell me thank you