Unidentified

Picture ID 152640

Picture of unidentified spider

Comments & ID Thoughts

Some type of Widow or False Widow? I've never seen nor read about a spider with markings like these! Very bright red line up its abdomen with a wavy, clearly defined off-white blotch on the side of abdomen.

  • Submitted by: 
    Silverb13
  • Submitted: Nov 27, 2021
  • Photographed: Oct 26, 2021
  • Spider: Unidentified
  • Location: Syracuse, New York, United States
  • Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.)
  • Found in web?: No
  • Attributes:
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TangledWeb

It does look like the False Widow, Steatoda triangulosa, the Triangulate False Widow. The reddish part is odd. They are translucent, the lighting can alter the appearance. The white should be golden and it is missing part of a leg.
It might have found itself in paint and struggled to escape if you live in a multifamily building. If you have a single family home, it could be natural markings variations. Hopefully you’ll see it again and get another photo.

Anyphaena

Sorry to interrupt I just wanted to ask about the Genus Asagena? Could this maybe be? The odd bright red and yellow just made me think of this Genus essentially exactly as you say it’s a false Widow just wanted to see if Asagena might be in that area?

TangledWeb

Anyphaena, you are welcome to jump in anytime. I was hoping you were around! Yes, Asagena is in familly Theridiidae like the False Widows of genus Steatoda. https://bugguide.net/node/view/412452 I looked at what Bug Guide has for Asagena species. It looks like it can be very difficult or impossible to differentiate the two genera. The blotchy pale side markings and reddish color are closer to Asagena than Steatoda. We may have identified many incorrectly without any way to know. At least we can identify the general type of spider if we can’t go to the General and Specific taxons level….which brings… Read more »

TangledWeb

Thank you for the update! I trust BugGuide’s ID’s from photos to be the best from a Citizen Science website. They have more years of experience and focus on only North America. Our site’s foundress began volunteering with identifying spiders from photos on that site before creating this site to focus on only spiders. I was kinda hoping you would try them. I volunteer and submit pics on that site a little to help myself learn from their experience. They are very helpful in explaining how to tell similar species of bugs apart. I’m very glad you found the answer.

TangledWeb

That’s helpful to our site. We can only take extra views as new submissions that are linked through the users account. It doesn’t say that anywhere on our site. I like how on Bugguide you can preview each picture and choose their sequence (the last one uploaded becomes the thumbnail pic for the group). Many people, like myself, post two or three photos per bug to give different details. We know our site needs that as the biggest part of an update. It’s up to our administrator to deal with that. I check my own accuracy of my IDs of… Read more »