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Comments & ID Thoughts
Is this a false widow? I found it dead in my kitchen sink in the morning when I went to do dishes. I think it may’ve fallen out of my dishrag.
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Jan 20, 2020
- Photographed: Jan 17, 2020
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Curwensville , Pennsylvania, United States
- Spotted Indoors: Sink or bathtub
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
Yes, this is a False Widow in genus Steatoda. Possibly Steatoda grossa. When they live in houses, a kitchen is the room their preferred room. They will only bite people in self-defense. It pains them if skin is pressed against them. The venom is a significant medical problem. These are great spiders for catching insects that come indoors. They get the flies and mosquitoes and I love that! They are very welcome to live with me. They’ll do anything they can to avoid contact with people and pets.
Thank you so much for your help! This is actually the 2nd one I’ve found – the first was in May & it was on my bed behind me when I sat up.
You did confuse me a bit – you say they’re very welcome to live in your house but at the same time say their venom is a significant medical problem. Does that mean that if you do get bitten it’s poisonous like a black widow?
So sorry, I left out the word “not”‘! Their venom is NOT dangerous. They are in the same family, Theridiidae, as Black Widows, but they have venom that is much less potent on people. Yet, this one, Steatoda grossa, kills and eats Black Widows. I’ve seen Yellow Sac Spiders and House Centipedes kill Steatoda species spiders though. Spider venom is an understudied area of biochemistry. It has potential for many pharmaceutical products and is just beginning to be studied.
Thank you so much for replying & for clearing that up for me! I feel so much better now lol
And thank you for all of the info! You have no idea how much I appreciate it 🙂
You’re quite welcome! I get help from the volunteers at Bugguide.net for insect identifications and I know what you mean. I really appreciate that they use their own time to research and think about my info requests about random bugs I took pictures of. 🙂