What type of spiders, with bumps on their backs?
Hello there,
When my mom first started putting some plants in her greenhouse earlier this year, We found a couple of small spiders, which appeared to have 2 horns / bumps on their backs… After the plants were done in the greenhouse, and we moved them out out, we thought the spiders left, but it seemed one moved around to the other side of the house, and a couple others appeared…
They’ve grown quite a bit, and were curious to what type of spiders they are? They are about 15 – 20 mm big…
Today I caught 2 flies for each of them, They were really quite fast at grabbing them and spinning them into a ball.
I tried to attach a couple of different angles of pictures I took, so you could see the bumps on its the back.
We live in Hanna, Alberta
Thanks, Zac

Hi Zac,
Sorry I don’t recognize your species, but I can tell you it is from the group known as Orb-Weavers. These spiders build a classicly shaped web and wait for prey. Keep feeding them flies and they will grow to maturity.

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Identify this critter please?
I don’t know if I sent you this picture before or not, but I figured I’d try again in case I didn’t the first time. We found this guy motoring across our new carpet. It looked like a spider, but I don’t recall if it had 8 legs or not. It’s almost like a very large tick of some kind. I believe it was around 1/2" in size, give or take a little. We live in Atlanta, GA.
Any ideas?
Dave

Hi Dave,
You have a species of Crab Spider, Family Thomisidae. They do not build webs but wait to ambush their prey, often flies and bees. Many species are found on flowers and they camouflage themselves to look the same color as the flowers. They are sometimes called Flower Spiders for that reason.

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this one bites me Hi. Pls. (!) tell me the species name. They have been biting my legs when I mow for too long now! They have hundreds of webs all over the lawn which are characterized by a funnel or cone down which they retreat.
Tnks! Shaun

Dear Shaun,
Grass Spiders are members of the Funnel-web Spider Family, Agelenidae. Your spider looks like a Grass Spider, Agelena naevia. It is a large spider, often reaching an inch in length. They build abundant webs of the funnel type in grass, low shrubs and occasionally near buildings. Few people realize how many webs are in the grass until the webs are made visible in the morning by the dew. Grass Spiders live for a year and often occupy the same web unless it it disturbed. They have a retreat in the web, the funnel, where they hide until prey falls into the web. They then run accross the web and drag their prey into the tunnel, which often has a rear door if the spider needs to retreat. We suspect your bites have a different cause. Have you actually seen the spider attack you?

Thank you Daniel for this. While I have yet to actually see one bite me, I have to strongly suspect this may be the villain. I have two or more years track record of bites on my legs. No-one else in our family experiences this. This is an outdoor/a summertime specific phenomenon. After mowing I come in, and bites begin appearing that day and over the days following. Last year I had ten. I do not wish to repeat that. Almost all the webs (there were/are many) on the lawn, made visible by the morning dew as you quite rightly say, are of the funnel variety. What else would be doing this? As a person who is allergic to a number of things, I feel fairly confident this (correct me if I am wrong) relatively harmless villain is something to whose bite I experience an allergic reaction. There usually is a necrotic or cytotoxic reaction unless the bites are responded to promptly with effective medication. ‘Save me’ if my discomfort is pushing me into a rush to judgement or knee-jerk type of thing, although my thoughts on this ‘aggressor’ here is ‘if the shoe fits, wear it!’ Did you think of anything further in the light of all this? When the web page wouldn’t open (the error message said something to the effect of: ‘the site has exceeded monthly quotas,’ and that seemed to me to be odd as we are approximately in the middle of the month) I ‘googled,’ and google had a cached page. Scrolling down the left hand side ‘revealed’ your address, so this was how I was able to reach you. I was crushed when I had finally gotten the photo and couldn’t find the site, something I had originally done via a portal, the Microsoft Network or msn.com home page search utility. Cordially, Shaun

Hi Shaun,
While the Grass Spider is normally thought of as harmless, it is entirely possible that you have a sensitive reaction. All spiders have venom and all are capable of biting. Sadly, we are willing to agree with your theory.

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Should we be concerned?
This little beast parked itself tightly into our daughter’s playscape. We don’t usually get a lot of large spiders up here in northeast CT, so we figured we would ask some experts if this thing is dangerous. We need to know soon as about a thousand of its infant minion have just burst forth from the joint where she’s nested!
Thanks!
Dave

Hi Dave,
Sorry for the long delay in answering. No, you should not be concerned. You have a wandering spider known as Pisaurina mira. These spiders do not build webs, but stalk their prey. They only build webs to care for their young. Though many spiders will bite when provoked, they are not aggressive. Comstock writes:
“This is an extremely variable species in colour and in size. Full-grown specimens measure about one half (ed. note excluding legs) inch in length. In the more common type the body is light brownish yellow, with a wide darker and browner band on the middle of both cephalothorax and abdomen; on the cephalothorax the edges of the band are nearly straight, but on the abdomen they are undulating. The band is bordered on each side by a white line. This is a common species throughout the eastern part of the United States, and one that frequently attracts attention on account of its beauty.” I hope your spider hasn’t met with an untimely end because of our tardiness.

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