Subject: Odd colorful spider
Location: Achaia, Greece
June 13, 2012 9:14 am
Greetings,
during a recent day trip to the wilderness I came across this odd colorful spider. What triggered my curiosity is that this awesome insect does not share the colors of the native Greek spiders (who commonly have earthly colors like brown and dark green), but looks like an exotic poisonous spider. Can you please identify it for me? Is it really poisonous or just flamboyant?
Thank you in advance!
Signature: Dimitris
Ladybird Spider
Dear Dimitris,
This beautiful spider is a harmless male Ladybird Spider in the genus Eresus, a group of relatively rare spiders. We have a lengthy post on our site of a female Ladybird Spider from Slovenia. Ladybird Spiders are sexually dimorphic and the males and females appear to be different species. This is a nice photo comparison of the sexes from ARKive. There are some gorgeous photos of Ladybird Spiders on the Spiders of North West Europe website, including an image of possibly Eresus sandaliatus submitted by Dimitris Tzortzakis from Kreta, Greece. That wouldn’t be you, would it???
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One of the rarest spiders in Europe! What a lucky find. This is a male – one of the few species where the male is more brightly-coloured than the female. Cheers!
What an amazing creature!
Indeed i found that in Mani Gytheio rare one and very impressive seeking probably a female nest. Indeed there were female nests at close proximity at the spider site. I first came up that spider when i was very young and thought was a black widow but of course its not at all . Its black velvety coloured and the nest seems like a fluffy tube like woolen clothing radiating oyutwards (like sgegestrias or filistidae spiders ) but lot bigger. The web is very strong tight and also fluffy parts are extemely elastic. Very impressive spider not at all dangerous despite its menace looking of the female. The malmignate or the female black widow of south europe is the 1/10 of its size. Hence spiders size is not a factor of dangerousness…. This is true a big one is not a venomous for humans.
Thank you for your comment and observations.