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Comments & ID Thoughts
Found inside of a fire hydrant, webbing and eggs covering the gaps between the cap and the body
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Mar 9, 2026
- Photographed: Mar 9, 2026
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Eastham, Massachusetts, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.)
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes:
It might be a Black Lace Weaver, Amorobius ferox. https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/7020/bgimage They live in niches at the bottom of a funnel web. The spider is hidden, but the web can be quite wide. The web is dark gray, which is unusual in the US. This might be our first spider in a fire hydrant photo. 🙂 I have Black Lace Weavers living in the gaps between the stones in my house’s foundation. They’re about a non-aggressive as a spider can be.
My first hunch was Steatoda borealis, what do you think?
S. borealis is common in the area, it was one of the first spiders that I considered. The markings don’t match, S. borealis has crisp linear markings and a shiny texture. The way the legs are pulled up in the defensive posture isn’t their style, Steatoda just raise their legs a little bit. The Blacklace and other ground prowlers pull their legs over their body, like this one is starting to do in the photo. The ground spiders like D. crocata, Broad-faced sac Soiders, and Black Lace Weavers seem to have more fluid capacity for hydraulic shifts in their legs.… Read more »
You could be right, the webs unfortunately i had to destroy, but it was a funnel built into the niche that it darted out from, do you know if theyre known to cohabit with others? There were about 3 or 4 in the same ring under the cap.
Yes Black Lace Weavers live together in the funnel web. It seems like an odd thing for spiders to do. Other Funnel Web spiders also live in group housing webs. I once found a Grass Spider funnel web that was at least 3 feet long with multiple living chambers with pairs of spiders in the chambers. I think it’s cute that the Black Lace Weavers live as male-female couples. I can sample them in my cellar by grabbing the exterior webbing and pulling out the spiders into my hand. They usually “play dead” for a few minutes if grabbed. I… Read more »