Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Seeking to identify an unusual spider?
I saw this spider in my house about an hour ago and haven't been able to easily identify it online.
I live in western/coastal California, west of LA (Ventura County)... have never seen it here before but I would assume it is native as we haven't brought anything in recently from out of the area.
It was small (about 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter, including legs). It had a bright red body, large and oval shaped (body probably 1/3 to 1/2 inch in diameter). Didn't immediately notice any dots or identifying markings... I didn't pull out a magnifying glass, but nothing was immediately obvious. Dark head, brown or black. Thick, short legs that were striped in white and black/grey... the stripes were very clear and easily identifiable, and they seemed almost fuzzy.
I've seen similar questions that asked about a spider like this, and were answered with a orb-weaving spider or a red jumping spider... but this spider looked absolutely nothing like any picture I found of either of those. In fact, its' body and legs almost resembled a very tiny tarantula... aside from the unusual colorings of course.
Can anyone identify this arachnid?
Unfortunately did not get a picture of it, it escaped before I was able to do so. If I see him again, I'll make sure to post a photo.
2 Answers
- John RLv 710 years agoFavorite Answer
Your description (which is good, clear and very helpful, by the way) sounds very much like a jumping spider. There are a couple of possibilities out your way - Phidippus johnsoni (first link), and P. adumbratus (second link) would be my top two choices. These aren't the only possibilities, just the ones I would look at first. If you want, look through the images of the various Phidippus out your way; the first thing you'll notice is that there's a huge amount of variability. First, males and females are often different, and then there are regional differences in patterns and colors. One of these days, all the various spider groups like this will be organized based on genetics as well as morphology, but for now, this is what we have.
I'm not ruling out some other kind of spider, of course, whether it's a different genus of Jumping Spider or some different kind altogether, but based on your description, I'd put the odds in favor of one of those Phidippus at something like 3:1 or more.
