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Comments & ID Thoughts
Size about 1 inch legs included
Tends to live closer to the ground
Observed it “bouncing” slowly when another spider ( same kind) came near its web. Just started noticing these spiders a few years ago. Never seen them before anywhere. Found inside my house
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Jul 7, 2022
- Photographed: Jul 6, 2022
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Nassau Bahamas, Bahamas
- Spotted Indoors: Other
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes:
Pholcophora bahama? This is a female Cellar Spider in family Pholcidae. There are hundreds of species and Pholcophora bahama was the only one I could find that is known to be established in the Bahamas. Unfortunately I couldn’t find images or description of the species. Yours may be a newly introduced species, alternatively. Your description of the bouncing behavior is interesting. I’ve seen Cellar Spiders do that to try to scare away humans. I didn’t know they do it to other spiders. The ones in my house all have their own territories, I should have wondered how they guard their… Read more »
Thank you for your response. The ones in my home seemed to have shown up over the last couple of years. Had never seen them before. And they’re everywhere. Mostly a few inches off the ground.
It’s odd that they’re making such low webs. The Cellar Spider species in my house makes webs mostly near the ceilings to catch insects that are trying to escape the house by flying upwards. There are probably species surveys occurring in the Bahamas. They are frequent now that we all walk around with phone cameras. iNaturalist may also have a Bahamas section. That site also posts photo requests from scientists. Around the year 2000 a study focused on tropical Pholcidae spiders because they hadn’t been well-studied. They found new species during the study. I’ll look for the study to see… Read more »
http://www.pholcidae.de/PDFs/new_world_pholcidae_2000.pdf For anyone who is interested … this is 348 pages of detailed research on Western Hemisphere (“New World”) Pholicidae. It includes a true identification key, which is the way we had to identify organisms long ago when I was in college. There are many new Cellar Spider species and genera plus diagrams. I admit I didn’t read it all. I did look at the *****cool electron microscope photos**** of the anatomical identification details of Pholcidae.
The study of Pholcidae that I posted is poorly organized. Bahamas are “New World,” right? Christopher Columbus stumbled upon them and “discovered” them as part of the New World, I think. I couldn’t find mention of the Bahamas in the not alphabetized study, unfortunately. Simpler methods are probably more productive for finding this spider species.
Yes that is correct.