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- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Mar 21, 2019
- Photographed: Mar 21, 2019
- Spider: Theridion
- Location: Florida, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.)
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes: Dorsal
Theridion
Picture ID 54940
Additional Pictures
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Theridion spp.
Family
Genus
Species
- Submitted
Apr 8, 2019 - Photographed
Apr 8, 2019 
3 Comments
Help identify this spider
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Theridion spp. Family
Genus
Species
- Submitted Jan 14, 2019
- Photographed Jan 14, 2019
Female- 2 Comments
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Theridion spp. Family
Genus
Species
- Submitted Nov 17, 2019
- Photographed Jun 21, 2019
Male
Clonard, Wexford Town, Ireland- 1 Comments
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Theridion spp. Family
Genus
Species
- Submitted Nov 17, 2019
- Photographed Jun 24, 2019
- Coolcotts, Wexford Town, Ireland
- 2 Comments
There’s lot of dead bugs at the bottom of the web so it seems to be a very messy spider. The web isn’t very neat either and looks old so i was surprised to see it’s still being used.
I don’t know which one it is yet, this is a tangledweb / cobweb spider. Cobweavers are easy to recognize by their messy webs. They only seem to stop using them when the web gets too dusty to be sticky. The trick is that prey doesn’t recognize the mess as an active spider web. There are triplines of silk hidden in there that alert the spider to a visitor. I read that the spider grabs the prey and wraps it in the tufts of web nearby rather than spending the time to make new silk to wrap it in. That’s… Read more »
Thank you so much! That’s really interesting about their webs so thanks for not only helping I.D it but teaching me about them. I really enjoy watching spiders build their webs, especially spiny orb weavers
You’re very welcome! I find the diversity of spiders’ hunting techniques interesting. My husband just showed me an interesting video of how a bolas orbweaver hunts with a long gooey strand of silk that they can whack moths with. Moths don’t stick well to webs so the bolas spider has a lot of wet adhesive that soaks through the layers the moth can shed.
Hi, I can get to to genus at least. This looks like one of the Cobweb Spiders in the genus Theridion. There are a bunch of very similar looking ones in the genus. Here is one similar but probably not the same: https://bugguide.net/node/view/1254617/bgpage
Thank you!