Subject: What is this guy?
Location: central NJ
August 31, 2016 11:17 am
I saw this spider in the gym today and nearly left (I’m not a big fan of spiders). we tried to shoo him out the door but he kept running the wrong way. Finally we convinced him to go outside. He was probably the size of a half dollar and he was quite fast.
Any idea what it is?
Signature: Andy
Dear Andy,
The spinnerets on the tips of the abdomen help to identify your spider as a Grass Spider in the genus Agelenopsis which you can verify by comparing your spider to the one in this BugGuide image. According to BugGuide: “These spiders are very common throughout the United States and Canada. Their webs will ‘litter’ the low-hanging shrubs and grass in summer to early fall, and are really noticable after a nice early morning dew. They are fairly easily identified: a “small” brown spider with longitudinal striping, the arrangement of their eight eyes into two rows. (The top curved row has four eyes and the bottom curved row has four eyes). They also have two prominent hind spinnerets. A spinneret is a spider’s silk spinning organ. They are usually on the underside of a spider’s abdomen, to the rear. On many spiders, the spinnerets cannot be seen easily without flipping the spider over; however, with Agelenopsis, the spinnerets are readily seen without having to flip the spider over. “
Thank you. I thought it might be a wolf spider. Good to know it’s not.
They do look quite similar to Wolf Spiders.