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Comments & ID Thoughts
I’ve seen 6-8 of these brown spiders outside of the house, which range from 0.5” to 1” in length. I am very interested to learn what spider it is because I saw one fight and kill a giant black widow that was twice its size. I have video I can share of this as well.
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Nov 20, 2022
- Photographed: Nov 19, 2022
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: San Diego, California, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.)
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes:
This is Steatoda nobilis, a Noble False Widow. They are in the same family, Theridiidae, as Black Widows and Brown Widows. It was introduced accidentally to California from Europe. Brown Widows, Latrodectus geometricus is also an introduced species. There is concern that the native Western Black Widows, Latrodectus hesperus will suffer too much population loss to the introduced spiders that eat Black Widows. I would like to see your video. A link can be placed in dialog, such as this, on our site to video hosting sites like Youtube. It can be posted in a link to this reply, if… Read more »
Thanks for the ID! Here’s the videos: https://youtu.be/H6Mo74XigsQ
https://youtu.be/x3ptAKnzELQ
Wow! That was an intense battle! The False Widow was more nimble and definitely was the aggressor. The tried to bind the posterior legs of the Widow and stayed away from the fangs. She repeatedly bit the Widow’s posterior. It looked like they were both dripping venom. Some male spider species bind the females also to avoid being killed by the female during and after mating. The Widow was slow to react to the venom and got some changes to try biting the False Widow. If you want to use the scientific names in the description on you tube they… Read more »