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Comments & ID Thoughts
I was at Fred Meyer's in Wasilla, Alaska. They just recieved a shipment of bananas. I tried to look it up, but I'm just so unsure, I wanted to get an opinion cause I thought it looked like a "Nursery Web Spider" but I heard the Brazilian Wandering Spider sometimes hitches a ride with Bananas. The Spider look to be about 3 inches big and has some of the markings of a smaller or younger Brazilian Wandering Spider. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Mar 26, 2021
- Photographed: Mar 25, 2021
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Wasilla , Alaska, United States
- Spotted Indoors: Other
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
Are you positive on the size? The features of this spider match Wolf Spiders in the Pardosa genus. They are native to Alaska but the only problem is that they do not get anywhere near 3 inches long. They will typically max out at just over an inch long in terms of diagonal leg span. If it is that big then I’m not sure which kind of Wolf Spider it is.
I think it’s in family Pisauridae, a species of Nursery Web Spider or Fishing Spider. I haven’t seen this particular one before, the raised dorsal ridge is interesting. It is also possible that it is a Huntsman – from the diagonal angles of the tarsi. They sprawl their legs and are lower-slung than Wolf Spiders. Ashley, please consider it a new pet 🙂 A lot of tropical spiders hitch rides on organic and semiorganic bananas and grapes. I’m jealous, this is what I’m hoping to find every time I’m in a produce dept. I have yet to get a “free… Read more »
It’s kind of funny that this happened. About a month ago, I was telling my mother about a Brazilian Wandering Spider that caught a ride on some bananas. Now she won’t buy bananas, especially after I showed her the picture of the spider that popped up here. It was seriously the biggest spider I’ve seen here! Thank you for the comments & the help! Good luck on your search for produce pets!
3 inches was just my estimate. It could’ve been a little smaller, but not much. I’ve seen the wolf spiders here (I’ve lived in Alaska all my life, 35 years) and this spider was much, much larger. It was the biggest spider I’ve ever seen! It was so big it drew in a very large crowd of people!
Very cool spider! I would also guess that it’s a fishing spider, because of the size and the striping on the legs. It looks similar to the dark fishing spiders in my area, but I’m not sure about that.
After reviewing this photo and others on the internet I think I may have figured it out. This spider does appear to have two “rear” facing eyes and a heightened cephalothorax like something in the Pardosa genus, hence my original ID. That would mean that it is not in the Pisauridae family. I reviewed other families of spiders in the Lycoisidaea “super family” and I eventually found the Acanthoctenus genus in the Ctenidae (Wandering Spider) family. Same eye pattern, same heightened cephalothorax, similar median band on carapace, similar chevron pattern on the abdomen and the same striped legs. Also these… Read more »
Also the species shown in the link I provided is from Panama, a country that is a very large exporter of bananas especially to the US and Canada.