6 inch white furry spider
I love your site. It’s fascinating as well as informative, my children and I love viewing it since discovering it while trying to find information on the following: This spider hangs out on our back porch, putting in an appearance about once a week. We live in the woods near Tallahassee, Florida. Needless to say there is never a shortage of insects, amphibians or reptilians in our neck of the woods. But I have never seen a spider like this, altho it does resemble my pet Chilean Rosehair with the exception of having a flatter profile. It is about six inches long, fuzzy, and attractively marked. It seems very placid and docile, allowing me to get very close to take these pictures. Online searches for white spiders have yielded nothing. Can you help us? Thank you so much for your time!!
Laurie Ryan
Hi Laurie,
What a positively gorgeous specimen of a White Banded Fishing Spider, Dolomedes albineus. We have never seen a specimen quite this white before. Dolomedes Fishing Spiders are harmless, and quite fascinating spiders. Many species are quite aquatic, and capable of diving beneath the surface of the water to capture small fish and other aquatic creatures. The White Banded Fishing Spider is not one of the more aquatic species. It is generally found in trees.
I have one of these large white fuzzy spiders in my satsuma tree and had a hard time finding out online what type of spider it was. Thank you for your post and info.(I have a pic & tried to include it, but it didn’t paste into comment):-)
I saw one of these on the surface of the river behind my house when kayaking. Thought it was a dead lily head when I was reaching for a floating water bottle and nearly capsized myself when it ‘stood up’ and skittered under the overhanging shore foliage. Between 5-6″ and very light light like this one, which is why I mistook it for a bruised white lily head.