
Comments & ID Thoughts
My husband saw this earlier last week; it was larger than your average Pacific Northwest spider. He ended up spraying it with spider spray as it looked too gnarly to leave it on the sidewalk we see daily during our walks. He said it shrunk with the spider spray. Zoom in on its legs- see the hair? My brother is an ecologist and guessed it was a steatoda nobilis from my description but upon seeing the photo he thought it isn’t at all how he had thought and I should bring it to a specialist to identify it! Someone help? What is this?!
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Oct 15, 2018
- Photographed: Oct 14, 2018
- Spider: Araneus diadematus (Cross Orb-weaver)
- Location: Snohomish County, Washington, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Low foliage (shrubs, herbs, garden, excluding flowers)
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes: Dorsal
Hi, what I can see of this looks like a Cross Orb-weaver, Araneus diadematus. They’re beneficial and may prey on less desirable things. If you see one in a web in a place where you walk you can just destroy the web with a stick, if you manage to sweep up the spider with the web just toss it somewhere it can make a new web further away from people.