Login
Register
Comments & ID Thoughts
I would like to know what kind of spider this is.
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Sep 4, 2018
- Photographed: Sep 4, 2018
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Henderson, Nevada, United States
- Spotted Indoors: Other
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
My son found this on his patio BBQ counter. My daughter-in-law screamed. We don’t know what kind it is. Is it venomous?
Hi. looks like a desert blond tarantula, Aphonopelma chalcodes species. Mildly venomous,but not dangerous at all.
Not the best climbers around, Somebody may be pranking here.
Looks rather small, a juvenile or spiderling perhaps.
Used to spot them in the valley back in the early 80s, haven’t seen one in years.
People tend to keep them for pets, if not wanted simply gently pick it up and put out in the yard.
Coax it to crawl onto a hand. Careful, a fall will kill it, they live on the ground.
https://bugguide.net/node/view/85835/bgimage?from=0
Thanks, Dan, it does look like some of the ones at that link.
New information: The metal bowl in the photo is their dog’s water bowl, so it might not be the counter but the floor, which makes more sense given what you wrote.
My granddaughters might have been interested in keeping it as a pet, had their mom not “screamed like a girl from an ‘80s horror movie” at which time their dad (my son) “chucked him over the fence into the golf course.” I hope its flight over the fence didn’t kill it. It doesn’t sound like “gently”.
Sometimes it does take the whole household agreeing to keep pet spiders. I had two of these living in my yard above Pasadena Ca. Being careful not to upset their burrow doing yard work.
One came out chilling near her hole, and got her onto my hand. Not big spiders even as adults,mine were near 3 inches.
If the spider landed in grass, it may have survived, an hard surface, even short falls can rupture abdomens ending in fatality.
Since golf courses are usually made of grass, I will assume it survived.