Spider Identification Guide
Use this page to help identify a spider by comparing its size, color, markings, and body shape with our library of spider pictures.
Below, you can also browse visitor-submitted spider photos and identification discussions. While not every match is exact, these examples may help narrow down what you found.
If your concern is a possible bite rather than the spider itself, see our spider bite pictures and treatment information for additional guidance.
Spider Identification Chart: Match What You See
Find the row that sounds most like your spider. A description alone can never confirm a dangerous species, but it can tell you what deserves a closer look. Where you live matters too, since most species keep to known ranges.
| What you see | Most likely spider | Dangerous? | Learn more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shiny black, round belly, red hourglass on the underside | Black widow | Yes | Black widow guide |
| Tan or brown, dark violin mark behind the head, plain uniform legs, six eyes | Brown recluse | Yes | Brown recluse identification |
| Tan or brown widow shape, orange hourglass, spiky round egg sacs | Brown widow | Mildly | Brown widow guide |
| Brown or gray, hairy, a lighter stripe down the back, hunts on the ground | Wolf spider | No | Wolf spider guide |
| Black, fuzzy, compact, with a white or orange dot on the back, moves in jumps | Bold jumping spider | No | Jumping spider guide |
| Brown with chevron markings on the abdomen, builds a funnel-shaped web | Hobo spider or another funnel weaver | No, despite the reputation | Hobo spider guide |
| Bright silver belly, hangs under a flat web near water | Silver orb spider | No | Silver orb guide |
| Large yellow-and-black spider with a zigzag band in a wheel web | Garden spider (Argiope) | No | Garden spider guide |
| Long yellow body, golden silk web strung high between trees | Golden silk orb-weaver, the banana spider | No | Banana spider guide |
| Glossy brown, round belly with faint pale marks, messy tangle web indoors | False widow (Steatoda) | Mildly, often mistaken for a widow | Compare photos |
| Bright green, long-legged, in gardens and orchards | Orchard spider, sometimes miscalled a green widow | No | Dangerous spider overview |
| White or yellow spider sitting motionless in a flower | Crab spider | No | Compare photos |
| Huge, fast, tan, in desert country, not in a web | Camel spider, not a true spider at all | No venom | Camel spider facts |
Two honest cautions. First, color and markings vary inside every species, so treat the chart as a starting point and confirm against real photos. Second, range matters more than people expect: a “brown recluse” spotted far outside the central and southern United States is usually a lookalike, most often a wolf spider or a funnel weaver.
If your real question is about a bite rather than the spider, start with the spider bite pictures and bite identification chart instead.
Reader Encounters: Identification Wins From the Archive
Three condensed reader stories that show identification working the way it should: calmly, with a container and a photo, and without anyone getting bitten.
Shawn: the doorway monster was an orb weaver
Shawn walked out his front door into a quarter-bodied spider hanging six inches from his face in a web the size of a card table, and retreated indoors with, in his words, a few choice expletives. With the porch light on it turned into a scene from Charlotte’s Web: a big orb weaver calmly eating a moth in the middle of its wheel. Another reader on this page identified it for him. Startling, harmless, and gone in a few days, which is the usual orb weaver story.
DeeJay: the spiky egg sacs gave it away
DeeJay’s mailbox, wash bucket, porch chair, and bike seat all turned out to be hosting widow spiders, and the round egg sacs covered in spikes, like tiny naval mines, are what identified the brown widows. With an immune-compromised daughter at home she could not fog the place, so it became patrol work: flip the furniture, check the undersides, crush the sacs. The spiky sac is the single most reliable brown widow tell, worth knowing anywhere they are spreading.
Addie: the pat-a-pat in the dark
Addie heard a soft pat-a-pat-a-pat near her pillow at night and talked herself out of it, until it crossed her husband’s head two minutes later. The tan, velvety spider with a two-inch leg span went into a bird-feeder tube and got a portrait taken: a fishing spider, almost certainly a stowaway from a camping trip, big enough to be alarming and harmless enough to release outside. Catch, photograph, compare, release. That is the whole method, and nobody had to get close.
I found a spider in my apartment yesterday that I would love some help identifying. Some info that might help: I live in St Paul, Minnesota, close to the river. It is starting to get cool here, and I seem to have an influx of creatures in my warm apartment each fall.
About the spider: I first saw it crawling up the wall. The speed at which it moved led me to believe for a second that it might be a house centipede, of which we see a few each year. It also appeared very narrow as it ran on the wall. But in fact, it was clearly a spider- eight legs, not sure how many eyes. The spider crawled around on the wall for a while and eventually crawled down toward the floor where I managed to trap it in a cup (it was later released outside).
The spider was medium reddish-brown in color, and when I shined a flashlight on it, appeared very red and fairly translucent. It was between 2 and 2.5 cm in length. It had very strange looking pedipalps- long, very similar to the legs, appeared as though they had, perhaps, breadcrumbs on them. That is to say there were very light brown specks “attached” to the ends of them, and they were curled inward tightly at the tips. The spider was noticeably hairless, and had two very distinguishing features. First, it’s abdomen resembled a sesame seed (though about twice as long as a normal sesame seed)- uniform in color- basically tan- all around. And second, its sternum was quite red (not black widow red, but quite red for a brown spider), and created an interesting patten with the base of the legs- it looked like a red circle with white bubbles around it.
In the time that the spider was in the cup, it left something of a web, though it seemed unintentional. As I have looked around online, the spider most closely resembled something between a brown recluse (though we don’t really have those here, the color was slightly different, and it did not have a fiddleback mark, nor any other marks that I saw) and a yellow sac spider. Neither seems exactly right. It does not look like any of the common Minnesota house spiders that I have found, and I have never seen a spider like this before. I would love thoughts or suggestions. Thanks!
My cat got my attention by meowing at this spider on my wall. I’ve never seen a spider that looks like this. The size and color scared me so I goggled it and couldn’t really find anything on it. Hope someone can help.
CK
I found you online and didn’t know if you still help identify spiders. I found this spider on the screen to my porch. My son actually found it which is my biggest concern. I live in South Carolina. Please let me know if you have any idea.
Thank you,
Dana
Hi,
I would like to know what type of spider is in the first picture (with whitish grey bands on the abdomen) of post #538 by Samantha H. I too live in SoCal and one of these littl suckers decided that I was Little Miss Muffett and tried to hang out on my shoulder while I was watching TV. I am terrified of spiders that I cant identify…I cant even take a nap on my couch anymore casue Im scared. I desperately need to know what this is.
TIA
#462 – Those are brown widow spiders. And the yellow things are a bunch of babies yet to be hatched. Get rid of them.
Please help!!!
I live in northern Illinois and was bit by a spider. I have experianced many extreme health isssues since. I have been to MAYO Clinic, UIC, N. Western, and many other doctors.
My current doctors need an identification of the spider to help me. Everywere we have gone no one can identify it. I dont have a picture but it was 1″ long with a metallic dark green body, black head and legs. It dropped out of a tree on me while I was working at my house next to the fox river near the Illinois Wisconsin border.
Narrowing down the spider will treatment. Please Help !!!!
I don’t have a photo so I’ll try my best to describe the spider I’m trying to find. I live in Houston, TX and first saw this spider around early winter (Oct., Nov.). The body was about 3″ long. The legs were also about 3″ long, making the spider a good 6″ from front legs to back. It was black and yellow. I’m not sure if you would say black with yellow marks or vice versa as neither color seemed to be the dominant one. The body is a shell versus a soft body such as a wolf spider. I know this shell is at least flame resistant as my roomies tried to “kill it with fire” (see: made a blowtorch with a can of wd-40 and a lighter). The fire did absolutely nothing except make it angry. The best description of an “attack” that I can give is that it moves very, very fast and seems it would attack with fangs. I only say this because one night, we were locking our front door and it dropped down from the roof and tried to attack our hands at the door. I know this spider builds webs as that is how it was able to “fall”. I was not able to determine if any of the webs around the property belong to this specific spider. I was not comfortable getting close enough to see any small details about it such as eyes, fangs, etc. Any help in at least starting to identify this spider would be greatly appreciated. I have checked numerous sites and don’t really know where to begin.
Thank you.
I had an encounter with a very small brown spider it had two conjoined horizontal triangles on the top of its head. In michigan. It may have been a small wolf spider , but Im not shure.
hello my sister in law works in a nursing home in england we dont see many spiders apart from tiny one’s found in homes but the particular spider that she found was one that she had never seen before. it was jet black, with a white cross on the butt end, and white stiped legs it was found in the washing machine after washing had been done.
could anyone tell me what kind of spider this might be! i would appreciate it thanks
Hi, I was hoping you could help me identify this beautiful spider I saw near Parry Sound Ontario on Oct. 4th of this year. I took about 20 pictures of her but none really came out well: she just wouldn’t sit still and my camera’s not so great.
The body was approx 1cm(3/8th inch) long(looked like one body not two??) and the legs were about 180cm!!!(3inches) long. As it walked(ever-so gracefully) the body was about one/two inches off the ground. It was walking ‘casually’ and I got the impression that if it was in a hurry it could probably move about as fast as a human’s normal walking pace. It was quite cool that morning, around 4C(40F) I think, but that didn’t seem to bother this creature at all. Thanks in advance and thanks for your great website.
P.S. The legs had a really thin final segment of about 2.5cm(1inch) that doesn’t really show in the pics.
Found this spider in the garage yesterday (Oct 20), located in NE Ohio. It’s got beautiful color – but the wife is freaking out. Can anyone identify it?
Hi! I found a large (bigger than a quarter, smaller than a silver dollar) bright orange spider in my basement crawling across the floor. I live in Minnesota. What is it? Does it bite? No picture, sorry, I squashed it.
I have been spraying for spiders in my (finished) basement and around windows, doors, etc., but I still seem to be getting them in. Any suggestions for keeping the critters out?
I got a bad spider bite earlier this year that caused a skin infection, and now I am even more paranoid about them!
Hi. This is a picture of a spider we found in our kitchen behind the trash bin. We live in downtown Indianapolis, IN. We were looking it up but couldn’t find an exact match, at first we thought that it was a brown recluse. Can you please help us identify this spider? It’s legs have faint stripes of black. the head has two large fangs and it is black and white striped. The butt has dark red and black stripes, and it looks like it has two smaller little fangs. It also has an hour glass shape on its belly, or its just a thick line. I tried to show it in the picture. It is about an inch long but was bigger when it was first caught. Hopefully you can help! Thanks a bunch.
We encountered about 30 of these spiders in one ditch picking up trash for Adopt-a-Highway. We are just wondering what they are. I’m sure they are harmless but we are quite curious. We’d never seen a spider like this and then to see 30 or more! We live in Northwest Iowa and we’ve never seen spiders this big! The photos are from my cell phone so the quality is bad, and we didn’t have anything to put next to them to show their size, some were as big as quarters.
Thanks! Jennifer B.
I got bit by the same spider that #62 has a pic of if anyone knows what type it is i would appreciate if you could let me know so I will know if it is posionous. Thanks Jessie
I saw this in the woods, could you tell me what it is?
My kids found this spider, already dead, on our driveway.
We live in the SE part of Michigan (Monroe).
What is the name of this spider?
Thanks!
Mary
Can you tell me what this is? I live in Boise, Idaho and have found several in my garage. They are large, over an inch from end to end.
Thanks
Joan T
What kind of spider is this? I don’t get too many of them, if any, inside my house, but lots of them on the outside. They were hiding under my siding but I fixed that and now they make little cocoon type webs in the corners and cracks of the house. They mainly come out at night for bugs which is great but they leave little black spots all over my house. Not good especially on new paint…..they need to leave. Can you help?
im petrified of spider, last night in my basement apt. in stamford CT. there was a small to med. sized spider with redish orange this hairs on its legs, i looked on line and its not a tarantulla. It just looks like a normal black spider with bright thick colored hairs on its legs! please let me know that this could possiby be.
For #363, that is a commonly known as a camel spider but is actully not a spider. It’s also closely related to the scorpion and may be known as a wind scorpion. They are not venomous although their bites may hurt.
I live in Flagstaff, AZ in a heavily wooded area (pines?) and woke up to find a nice little spider in my bathrooms sink this morning. I put in a glass but I don’t have a camera to take a picture. It resembles a brown recluse but doesn’t have the violin-shaped marking. It’s missing a leg so I think that’s why it’s not moving a whole lot. It has a thin body about a half an inch long and with the legs it’s just a little over an inch. There’s hair on the legs and they are banded brown and dark brown. The body is very dark, chocolatey brown with a cream colored stripe running the length of it. I can’t see any eyes, and there are two fang-like appendages on the front that may be genitalia. I don’t want to kill it, but if it’s poisonous I’ll take it away from my house to put it back outside. Any help is great! Thanks
I apologize,I was talking about the last one on the first page.
This last picture is what we are dealing with,we have 8 kids and 2 have already been bitten.we just moved here and have only been here a month,my husband,myself and 2 of our daughters have been bitten by brown recluse spiders and we have large circle scars where the flesh was dissolved. I don’t think this is a brown recluse but I would love to know what it is and how to get rid of them short of moving,but the fear of course is taking them with us in eggs.PLEASE help us find out.BTW,brown recluse are smaller and a lighter brown.We live in fear because we kill at least 4 of them every 3 days and when we smash them and they ball up they are as big as a quarter, bigger when they arn’t dead.Massive,freakishly aggressive,and they have even cornerd two of our small girls on the steps.Goosebumps are VERY common in our house.
Ok so i found this gal outside by my grill. she didnt seem to be bothered by me or my 2 dogs but all the same ive never seen this spider in illinois and I’ve lived here for 21 years. What really threw me was how large she is when shes not balled up, nearly bigger than a bottle cap or quarter. she has banded legs white and i think brown (didnt feel like putting my face any closer to her lol) her abdomen is rather unique, the only way i can desribe it is it looks simmilar to a mushroom, the white dots on the back have pin hole size small black dots in the center almost like small craters. I killed the egg sac that it was running from so i can only assume it is a female. Its rather aggressive when i put a small stick next to it it reared up and attacked it. SO i put the bugger in a container. Anyway any help identifiying this large beast would be helpfull i tried to supply pics that would be helpful
Hi Chris. Your spider looks like a Shamrock Orb Weaver.
Alissa
Alright, since July my wife and I have been getting bites every couple of weeks, usually on the back of our legs or right on the caboose. We thought it may be a brown recluse at first, since the pictures of the bites from it match with what ours looked like (small bite at first, swelling later, then the area gets inflated and hard after that, oozing/pus out of the wound, etc.). And when I came home one night, my wife said she killed one. When I went to see, she smashed it a little too much to tell if it was a recluse or not. But the bites kept coming.
Just now, a few minutes ago, I found this in our closet:
I’ve never seen a spider like this before. The only others we’ve found at home are tiny black or white ones. This one was much bigger (though still small) compared to them. I smashed 2 or 3 of its legs off before I took the pictures (sorry). I plan on fumigating everything this weekend.
Can anyone identify this thing? I live in Hillsboro, Oregon if that narrows anything down.
Hi Chris. Your spider looks like some sort of Shamrock Orb Weaver
Alissa
You can zoom In to it a litte its not bite me but I keep seeing the same one around this kind hope you can help
Do you think its and brown recuse ? For safey resons I gave it the death sentance and put in on some fantastic all perpos cleaner
Sincerely,
Ryan
Can you tell me what kind of spider this
is (Picture attached)? We saw it on a golfcourse in
Pemberton> BC, Canada. Thanks, Carol
Here’s my beast… s/he was about 3 inches tip to tail. I’m guessing it’s an orb spider, but couldn’t find any references to ones being that big!
thanks,
Jane
Okay, this was odd, what is it? Very curious, it was pretty big.
Can you ID this spider, found in Michigan
i cought this spider in my house the others i have killed are flat and this one is biger i fill it is a wolf spider and a female and i think the others are the males i live in ohio and they are comming in in droves i sprayed the whole house inside and out after i found this one in my bedrrom sending pic and responce would be greatful
Hi, I have another spider identification question. My boyfriend saw a few spiders in an old shed he was cleaning out. I didn’t see them, but he said that they were neon orange and had the body type kinda like a widow ( hairless ). I tried to find them on the internet but had no luck. I live in Central Virginia. Can anybody help me figure out what kind of spiders these were?
Thanks,
Alissa
I live in Central Virginia, and I have alot of spiders just like the one in the picture that Sonda caught ( # 62 ). I was wondering what kind of spider it is.
Thanks,
Alissa
Please help me with identifying this spider. We just got back from modoc county and live in Sacramento. it has a violin figure but is red. Please help i have a little one and am concerned.
Oh, and sorry–I forgot to say–I live in Connecticut.
Thanks!
I’ve seen a few of these spiders right outside my house–one especially seems to keep making her web right outside my back door. She’s a fairly large spider with brown and black striped legs, and she makes gorgeous traditional octagonal spiderwebs.
What is she? And is she dangerous in any way?
I found the Spider in #7 also and really want to know what he is called!!!!!
Sara
An employee was bit by this “little” guy. At first we thought that the orange area was part of the spider but upon closer inspection found that it was actually an egg sac. Im going to email a picture. Can you tell me what kind of spider it is?
I found this spider in our basement; any ideas what it is? It’s huge!
what kind of spider was it in # 97 nsend by alan it looks alot like the one i just found curled up in my finished basement along with so manny other kinds it is just horriable I HATE THEM
I live in Millington Michigan and I found this spider in the front of my house. I tried searching the internet for photos but was unsuccessful. Can you tell me what kind of spider this is? The first picture is the top of the spider and the rest are the bottom part of the spider. Sorry some of the pictures are not so clear but I was not taking it out of the jar, for clearer pictures, it was hard enough for me to get it in the jar.
Thanks,
Heather
I am hoping you might be able to help Identify a spider that I found on my porch yesterday. It was on the ground. I live in Southern Wisconsin
I thought it might be of the wolf species but I can’t find any picture similar to it.
I want to make sure it is not harmful for my two small kids. I have never seen one like this before.
Tressa
this was in a crepe myrtle tree in Dallas Texas in September 2008. Oddest spider I’ve seen. Do you know what it is?
Hello,
I have found 3 relatively large spiders living in my back yard (i live in central Ohio) and I was wondering if you could identify them. Thanks,
Rachel
This thing just came out from under my refrigerator. I live in SC and I am terrified of spiders. I would rather have had a snake come out! Do you know what it is please? Thank you, Joni
Please help if you can. This spider crossed my path (I was barefoot – never again) walking across middle of our wood floor in front room of our 106 year old house in Sheridan WY during the vice-presidential debate. It ran very quickly after I screamed, husband only saw a blur and did not believe it was a spider as it was so large. Husband pulled TV out and it was under it in the old furnace outtake vent. It reared up on its back legs and attacked the screwdriver my husband was holding and smacked its front legs down. He had a dark greyish blackish velvety appearance, striped legs and red fangs.
Thought maybe it was phoneutria nigriventer but in WY? It matches the behavior and appearance and has the red fangs. It measured 2 inches long. It is October and we had just watered outside and thought maybe we drove it into the house. Thanks for any help in identifying it. It is the biggest spider we have ever seen or caught in our new home (or any home for that matter and we have lived all over the U.S.) and needless to say it is was very large, very fast, and not at all afraid of my husband, which is terrifying.
hi duane: ( #1) the picture of the spiders you have are very good pics. the reason i am writing to you is because the spiders are Huntsman Spiders. i know this because i am fascinated with spiders and i happen to have one. oh, and dont be worried, they are harmless
Saw this spider in Myrtle Beach, SC. Also found a black widow in the garage, but I can’t identify the one that looks like a die or a domino.
Brian, Vernon, CT