Stumped two Universities so far with this amazing white spider…
February 20, 2007
Hello there:
So far two Universities have no idea what this amazing white spider is. It was found with many others in an old house my friend *was* considering buying in Easton, CT. ABOUT PHOTO: Subject’s photo was taken in Easton, CT- USA. Estimated size 2-4 inches. This photo has not been altered in any way except reduction of resolution. Oh, the spider was very much alive. Many of his brethren too. In fact, my friend could not sleep for many nights after observing all the crawling.
Cary
Hi Cary,
The reason we asked if the spider was alive is that this looks like it could be a fungus infection on one of the spiders in the Pholcus genus. Your further clarification tends to rule that out. We do not recognize your spider, nor have we ever seen a spider that resembles this. Sadly, your image does not have enough critical focus to reveal any details. We will try to search for information as well as check with some of our contributors. One of our readers wrote back to us: ” Oh gee, this is really ridiculous-looking. Sorry but no way is this thing alive, despite what Cary’s friend said. There is no real focus, so you can’t even be sure what you are looking at, but to me it looks either as you say, like a dead 2 inch daddy-long legs completely ‘bloomed out’ with a fungal growth, or perhaps more likely it is a molted exoskeleton hanging on an external wall which got coated with freezing condensation (sort of like frozen dew) in winter. I can well believe there were living daddy-long legs running around in the basement in this place, but they would have been normal color and normal appearance, not like this. “
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oh my god!
I’ve seen this spider. Get this, earlier this week my girlfriend and I were looking into renting this old farm house near a lake in central Maine. I decided to go into the basement to check out the oil tank & brought a flashlight. As I opened the door to the bulkhead and walked into the basement i noticed that it was damp and there as a dirt floor, the house was old and the foundation was made of granite rock. Before I stepped completely into the basement i scanned the area with my flashlight to make sure i wasn’t going to walk into anything i didn’t want to. As I turned the flashlight toward the ceiling i saw this thing wince as I shined the light on it. I took a closer look and it was a white (completely white) spider with wierd legs. there were like knuckles on the legs that were the exact shape & size of pellets or bee-bees for a pellet gun and yes the spider was alive. So I scanned the area further and there were many of these spiders moving as to shined the light on them. They stood out so easily hanging off the old dark wood beams, being that they ware bright white. I decided to go online to search out this spider, because I have never seen anything like, and was tired of trying to describe this insect to people who looked at me like i was going insane,after many hours of searching i found this posting, but that is definately the spider and it was definately alive.
Hi There, I love in south central Wisconsin, luckily it didnt take me hours to find this posting but i fear it will take a long while to get answers… i recently found hundreds of these spiders in various stages of life, alive, i bug bombed them tho, sadly, to ease my sisters piece of mind. here are teh details that i see pertinent. i found these spiders while winterizing my sister’s basement(old Farm house) dirt floored basement. their basement is divided, this is the part that no one ever goes into. ever. so this coupled with wincing at light and the obvious white color leads me to an albino thought. i collected several specimens ranging in size from fitting completely on a #2 pencil eraser tip to the largest one i saw about half the width of a dollar bill. ill try to find a way to post some pics maybe any ideas or questions PLEASE contact me superwade57@hotmail.com
Thanks!
I have that spider too. I was down messing with the water heater and I saw a couple of these guys. It was something straight out of a nightmare (not a spider fan). However, I was also very curious, so I managed to get one of the carcasses (all dead, thankfully) into a mason jar and I called my well educated friend. She said it is a daddy long legs covered in fungus. They like the moisture, but sometimes run into that problem. On close inspection it is pretty clear that it’s something covered in fungus. the body looks like a Q-Tip.
I have this spider tons of them in my basement i have some pictures as well Are they harmful I don’t know I just started getting them which is wired because a couple of weeks ago i went in the basement and they were not there, if you wish to see the photos please email me gendreau.r@hotmail.com i dont know how to post them on here?
My neighbor here in Michigan just found one this morning like the one shown in the picture. Has there been any updates in knowing what type it is and if it is poisonous? I am very cautious of spiders ever since I was bit by a Brown Recluse Spider.
I’ve seen this too! It was in an old musty unfinished basement in west New Jersey, there were tons of these spiders all over the place, all about 2-3 inches big, tho I’m pretty sure they were all dead. They certainly freaked me out, I didn’t even think about fungus, I just knew I never wanted to see one of them alive! I have been calling them scary ghost spiders ever since!
I took some pretty large, clear pix of a dead spider so infected recently; they’re here:
http://sn.im/ig9zj-vfw
Hate to think of a thing like that being still alive…ew!
I found one in the basement also, I think he is dead though, I also had seen them in another house that I looked at in Bradford Ma. Mine is in Groveland Ma. I also have pictures where do I post?
Just go to Ask What’s That Bug? and click the link for “Do you have a bug you want identified?”
I was working at this old house that we’re rebuilding, and I saw these spiders on the ceiling of the basement, me and my brother have arachnophobia so it didn’t go over too well, but when I was looking at it it occured to me that these could be daddy long legs that have evolved too dark, damp places.
p.s: the two we saw we’re alive and moving.
Hi,
) BTW, we are in Elmvale Ontario in case you are trying to track where these spiders are being found.
My son is looking for his first home and he and my husband went to look at an older home last night. They came back with tales of this spider that belonged in a horror flick. I thought they were pulling my leg so we goggled it. It is THIS spider! It was in an old home, in the dirt floor basement, they said that there were literally thousands of them. My husband could not get over how white they were or the “knuckles” that were on the legs!
Thankfully my son does not like the house and will not be buying it! Which is good because “Mom” would NOT be visiting!!
Man! Those pictures give me the shivers. I had noticed that when a certain type of spider in our house dies, in moist areas, it molds.. but ONLY that type of spider. And they only mold -after- death. Anyway, I was searching info on that when I came across this….
I had a thought. Could the ‘knuckles’ on them be because the exoskeleton there would be soft? At the joints? Same with the main body being softer so more spores or whatever come out. Sorry for not knowing the technical terms heh. Also – they were ‘wincing’ in the light, but were they running around? Could it be the fungi itself reacting to the light? o.o Well I guess if you guys knew the answers you wouldn’t be posting here haha, but I like to throw questions out there.
But dang, I can’t imagine seeing hundreds of these guys. I don’t have arachnophobia, but my mom does, and her fear has rubbed off a tiny bit on me. Makes me shudder thinking about these guys.
(I also feel sorry though
If they are being killed by this mold, and if they are still alive for a while as it kills them, I hope its not too painful D: )
i was helping my buddie work on his old farm house and there was maybe 20 of these spiders in the bastment all very much alive it looks like biger spiders are eating the young i thought they were dead till i watched them for a little while and they were moving very
creepy
I to have seen this spider!!!!They are in the basement of this elderly lady I care for. Some are dead but some very alive. There are tons of them 2-4 in. in size. the basement has a dirt floor and nothing much in it just the water heater, and a heater. The house is very old and no one goes down there. I am very concerned that this lady will get a bite from one of this things. There is no other spiders in her basement just the white ones with alot of dead centipedes in their webs. I saw one feeding on a centiped or wapping it up for later I didn’t look that close! If anyone knows what they are I need help for this woman I tryed spray but they just come BACK!!
If you can help e-mail me SBurns6576@aol.com
Sorry I am in northen IL. if you are trying to track this beast!
I saw this spider today & totally freaked. I hate spiders! I am working on a vacant home we own in western MD. I saw one of these about 3″ around with many little ones around it. I sprayed them all, along with the entire basement, with some king of indoor/outdoor bug killer. All of the spiders were alive & moving. Hopefully, I killed them all!!!
Ya I was just in my basement for a tornado warning and we saw the same spider.we found it on this cement block. It fell from the ceiling and my mom smashed it with her shoe we did not get any pictures of it but it was really weird looking. It was also squirming on the block. We are located in Pennsylvania if u r wondering
I have a really good pic of one of these – how do I post it? I found them in my girlfriend’s basement in Carthage, NY – all the ones I saw were dead…
k, that spider does exist. i was cleaning out my buddys basement in PA. and i found two of them they do move, fast too. i wish i would have caught it but i hate spiders so i dident but this spider is real and as it sounds it lives in old wet base4ments, i would like to kno what it is too so.
Man these things are nasty. My girlfriend and i were looking at a house for sale in Upton, MA. House has been vacant for 2 years and is an older home with a granite foundation. Went to check out the basement and saw one of these guys hanging from the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs. Stopped me dead in my tracks due to how weird it looked. Wasn’t moving but when i blew at it it was very much alive lol. Nasty weird looking spider for sure saw enough of that basement
Thanks. We keep hearing from people that the spiders are in fact alive, but we still believe they are suffering from a fungus infection.
I’m not afraid of spiders, but I’ll tell you, this spider creeps me out like you would never believe.
Similar to the other stories, I live in northeastern US; in NJ, 10 mins outside of Philly. I live in an 1800′s schoolhouse converted into condos. The basement gets wet when it rains… and we’ve broken records for the amount of rainfall in a month, and that’s before the hurricane.
I spray the basement with Home Defense Max, and 2 days prior, I had sprayed right where I saw this thing today.
Maybe they’re mummified spiders, and they’re coming back to life to take over the world… starting with Northeastern US?
In all honesty, I’m so creeped out, I’m scared to put my feet under the desk…
Here are some pictures.
http://yfrog.com/kl4k21j
http://yfrog.com/h802ufj
http://yfrog.com/mefh9xj
http://yfrog.com/184xwaj
http://yfrog.com/mg1ri1j
Thank you for supplying more information on this perplexing mystery. We have had numerous individuals write to us insisting that these creatures are alive and thriving though they appear to us to be dead spiders with a fungal infections.
I have numerous examples in my basement, they are not alive, but being very light and still attached to their webs, they move at the slightest breath or breeze. Dead spider or dead Harvestman, either way, death by spore invasion is creepy.
Thanks for supplying your observations. We have had a very hard time trying to convince folks that these are actually corpses.
Hi, I have an old farmhouse in Massachusetts. I went to clean out the basement and found lots of these spiders. They were hanging from their webs. I could not tell if they were alive.
If they are covered in a fungus, does anyone have an idea as to which fungus it would be? Also, is it harmful to humans? Thanks for your help!
We do not have a mycologist on our staff who can provide any information on the possible threat to humans from the fungus that attacks spiders.
I recently found quite a few of these spiders while fixing a water line under my house. They defiantly caught my attention that’s for sure i have studied bugs and arachnids since i was very young. I did not see any alive all where dead and their where quite a few other spiders of different species with webs very close to them. So this makes me wonder what type of fungus this is and does it kill the spiders or just consume the ones already dead, also does it target all spiders or is it species specific. To that end i am going to conduct a few control test and see what i can find out i will post my results and the pic when they are finished and see if we can shed some light on this. On a side note seeing these spiders and reading these story’s reminds me of a fungus from the rain forest i once read about that targets ants and once they are dead sprouts a spore from its head. “not saying theirs any relation here to that just reminded me of something interesting.
Dear Terry.M,
This is one of the most exciting comments we have gotten ever. We are going to feature this posting after so many years. From our perspective, all spiders we have received images of that were fungus ridden in this manner have been Cobweb Spiders (Hogue) or Cellar Spiders from the family Pholcidae according to BugGuide.
These are not alive!!!!!!!!!All this is is the shell of a spider. Correct me if I’m wrong but spiders do shed like snakes or the correct term for arthropods, it is actually called molting . As far as the white substance well it could be protein or the stuff they made bullet proof skin out of lol http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/17/breakthrough-bulletproof-human-skin-made-from-spider-silk/ thank you
OMG! yes, I found a few hundred of these in my mothers basement today when I was down there sealing cracks! I looked up and almost messed myself! I watched them move around on the ceiling and freaked myself out! They are VERY much alive and I swear they are waiting till night time to eat someone! They are between 1/2 and 2 1/2 inches in diameter and have the same balls on the joints. I can get a specimen if anyone wants one. My facebook is the most reliable way to reach me, Jennah Kohorst, Lima Ohio. Thanks!!
Thanks Jessa,
It would be great if you took a specimen to a nearby natural history museum to have an expert evaluate it.
nope they are alive , i saw one reacting to me taking an old calendar out of a barn , i can tell the difference between a dead spider carcass dangling and a living spider moving its legs .
Thanks vata19,
We still feel strongly that this is a fungus infection. Perhaps you saw an infected spider before it died.
i live in delta ohio my husband pulled off some of our mobile home skirting, and it is a massive infestation of these spiders please has anyone fugired out what the are or what is going on to make them look like this.
We maintain that this is a fungus infection.
Found one of these in my sump. Here’s the best picture I could manage. It looks pretty clear to me that it is, in fact, covered in white fungus (the picture shows the fuzziness fairly well).
http://bitly.com/PUeqjG
Thanks for your comment and photo.