Comments & ID Thoughts
Its living in my dinning room. Haphazd web around where it was photographed
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Jul 18, 2019
- Photographed: Jul 18, 2019
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Kaitaia, New Zealand
- Spotted Indoors: Other
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes:
I can only count 6 leggs
That’s okay, it’s not an insect. They have three body segments and usually have antennae. Spiders often lose legs ( maybe that’s why they start with 8). The first pair and part of its left third leg is missing. The legs evolved to be easily broken off by the spider when it gets trapped by a predator or stuck during molting. If the spider is young enough it can grow back a stumpy leg that’s better than nothing.
I have been researching and I think its the black house spider. Probably came into NZ from Australia. It can have a nasty bite. But for now its in the empty built in seat. I hope its not got babies in there as it may let its young eat her and Im guessing her mid legs would be the best bits first. She may not notice them missing. But it could be male. Im going to have to look inside built in box seat. Yuck.
That does look like a close match. I read the part in the Wikipedia article about the bite being, “excruciatingly painful.” Prettifying sure this is a female spider. I would personally destroy any egg sacks she has since she isn’t native. I haven’t contemplated which parts of the mother spider would be most delicious 😉 or easiest to get away with eating. I know some mother spiders die before getting eaten, I don’t know if they always do. It’s fair, she probably ate the males that inseminated her. We have a close relative of the Black House Spider here, but… Read more »
Hey thanks for that. I am looking at terminstion but wanted to be sure I was killing a non native species.
I am not sure of the species. I spend most of my time fighting invasive plants and I’m converting the land I have permission to work with to native species of plants. There are very few insects, birds, spiders, or animals at all -except mosquitoes- on these properties that are forests of invasive forbs, shrubs, vines, and trees. There are no squirrels or chipmunks even. So, if it is the species that you think it is I would do my best to stop it. If a school or exterminator or municipal office wanted a specimen I would kill it in… Read more »