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Comments & ID Thoughts
I had just gotten home from work and I found this bad boy perched up on top of my bathroom door frame / board.
Obviously, I think it’s a desert recluse.
Please share your opinions and concerns. What should I do if the overall consensus is that it is most likely a recluse?
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Nov 20, 2019
- Photographed: Nov 20, 2019
- Spider: Pholcidae (Cellar Spiders)
- Location: Chandler, AZ, Arizona, United States
- Spotted Indoors: Other
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes: Dorsal
Help identify this spider
Jan 21, 2020
Jan 21, 2020
Perry, 
Maybe Artema atlanta? We only have one Desert Recluse photo on file. They live in truly desert conditions where people are unlikely to see them.
Apparently they only reside in Australia and South Africa? I live in the AZ desert
There is an introduced population in Arizona. I don’t know how big the current population is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artema_atlanta
It looks a lot like the Violin spider found in South Africa. Family Sicariidae.
See the violin image on the back and head of the spider.
http://www.arc.agric.za/arc-ppri/Fact%20Sheets%20Library/Violin%20Spiders.pdf
The eyes make it look like Kukulcania arizonica, male. A bad angle to see the long palps though.
They are often mistaken for recluse.
https://bugguide.net/node/view/1654208/bgimage
https://bugguide.net/node/view/1411377/bgimage
What you have there dear friends, appears to be a heteropoda venatoria. A quick glance at the legs and feet show it to be a claw footed wall crawler.
Welcome back! @ItsyBitsy our Site Moderator identified and filed the photo. I’ll let her answer you about why she identified the spider as she did. She is on vacation, but I’ll forward this to her email for review when she has enough time.
I wouldn’t call waiting for a glasses rx update and full time remote learning with an adverse middle schooler a vacation. Hope you are well, and wish you a happy new year.
Happier New Year to You too! LOL, I meant “vacation” as an euphemism! 😉 I’m doing very well. Thanks for answering this question.
See this mommy for comparison [img
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Stockier legs with a wider eye cluster on yours, OP’s spider has a dark median carapace stripe – the opposite of of H. venatoria which is either mostly even colored on females or with a relatively lighter triangle down the median with a dark border on males. Also, they’re not established in AZ.
And no mustache. But most definitely a runner, not a web spinner. And BTW, the sewer rat of spiders, H Venatoria, pretty much covers the entire US.
We use the data from BugGuide.net as the most accurate way to determine the range of spiders in North America. Here’s their sightings data for about the last 18 years for H. venatoria https://bugguide.net/node/view/6930/data Our own site is younger and doesn’t have as many years of data collection. If you don’t have a Bugguide account, please let me know whether you can access the range data in my link. It requires an account and logging-in to access the data directly on the site. I’m curious about whether a link bypasses that.