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.
My mom found this spider on the kitchen counter in our Southwest Michigan home. She said she noticed it was on water when she was capturing it so maybe it’s one that is attracted to water. Never have seen one like it before, I call it’s front “feelers” little boxing gloves and my boyfriend says he thought they looked like little crab pinchers.
This is not a picture we took of it, but this picture looks exactly like it, but it came with no info on the spider when I found it. Our spider is a bit more hairy and just a little darker brown. The actual size of the one we have is about 2 1/2 to 3 inches leg span. Please help me out and tell me what type of spider this is!!! It’s so ugly! haha
Amber
i have a spider that is the size of a nickle is tan mostly and a tan butt with a white stripe down it with little white dots surrounding the white stripe.
Hi! I found this spider on a blade of grass back here in the Philippines. It’s small, yellow, and the abdomen and legs are slightly orange/brown. I really need to know what it is. Thanks in advance!
I live in Boise, ID. I found this spider in one of the lights on the outside of my house. Any idea what it is?
I live in western Michigan, and found a creeper in a web near our breezeway. Its black, with yellow detailing on its belly. On top its almost green in color. It has black and brown striped legs, that it likes to keep in 4 sets of 2.
I found this spider in my aunts driveway…there has been a lot of them in the house but this is by far the biggest i have seen in the last couple of days…i don’t think it is poisonous but I’m scared to death of spiders and I just want to know what I’m dealing with….
I don’t know how to put pics on here haha but it is a light brown spider with a darker back and head….The back of the spider was a lot bigger than the front…the legs were a light brown with a dark brown band around where the “knee” would be.
brown spider with 1/2 inch body, and legs just a bit longer than that and it lives in my house in Massachusetts. i can’t find any identification that looks like it.
I found a spider in my strawberries, in the garden. It had a button mushroom type body and also around the size of a button mushroom. It was white. Can anyone identify this for me?
hey Matt I may have some information about those seven spiders in your pool email me under [email removed]. i found the same one in my pond in the backyard and my instructor at my school wants me to take to their lab some ill have more info on it Monday or Tuesday but it would be nice if catch some in a jar with gloves because they bite. When i first saw it i thought it was dead too but they are very much alive. Please email me i am sure my instructor wants more to look at in the lab.
A Picture:
I found the spider in Nepal, in a National Park. The spider is black, except for the back body, that was orange. The back of the body was long, the “head” was very round. The spider was about the size of a credit card (a little bit bigger maybe), it was wider than it was long. The two front legs were longer than the back legs. The front legs were curved. I think the spider fell out of a tree while we walked trough the jungle.
I would really like to know what kind of spider it is.
Thanks!
I saw a tan spider with a black back and a brown stripe in the middle and tan legs. I would like to know if is is deadly. Please Help.
I found this little bugger in my basement. I’m scared of the little creepers and with my husband at work, I had to step up, so I scooped him into a paper CD Case and took pictures of him. He is brown with brown legs and a black body. He has a brown stripe down his back. I tried looking online and I can’t find what kind of spider he is. If someone could help, it would be greatly appreciated. I live in Ontario Canada. He may be just a regular house spider but I want to be sure.
Thank you in advance:)
Eden K.
I sent you a picture of a spider, could you please tell me what kind it is?
I found this spider in my back yard this afternoon by an apple tree. I don’t know what kind of spider it is and I cant seem to find any sites that help either. If anyone knows, please let me know. Thank you!
Live in Olympia Washington Area, and found these spiders in Nieces kiddie pool… Can’t find a match online. Anyone have a clue?
Don’t know how to do img tag, link is just a basic photo of spiders, yes, plural… 7 of them were found dead in the pool. There is a quarter next to them for size reference.
My Niece, Brother and Sister in law say thanks in advance :)
It is a brown bodied spider found in Pittsburgh, PA. The butt is big and round and looks kind of like a mushroom. The legs turn from brown to yellow or red (striped) and are long . The spider is not really that hairy, some on legs. It has a black abdomen and has 4 white dots on it. Anybody have any clue what kind of spider this is?
I found a spider. It has a yellow back with a brown and black belly with yellow detailing. It is fairly large and has black and light brown striped legs. I don’t know how to post a picture otherwise I would.
I saw a spider with light brown body and legs with brown stripes on them and a dark brown abdomen with a black stripe with white stripes I live in Niles, Michigan can you help me?
I saw a spider in my bathroom floor which was about 2 inches long with about 3 inch long legs.In color it was brown with dark colored legs and two yellow stripes down its back.I think it may be a wood spider but not sure.Can you tell me for sure?I live in Arkansas.
Me and my cousin were looking out on our porch at a spider that is tan with a cross on it’s back. It looks exactly like keegans ( a earlier comments ) picture. we have no idea if its poisonous or not or what kind of spider it is.
To Dennis M.,
Your spider looks like an Arrow-shaped Micrathena Spider.
I live outside of Philadelphia, PA and came across a spider with a yellow and black body with red legs. Does anyone know what kind of spider this might be?
Hanging from a single strand of web, I saw a medium brown spider, about the size of a nickel. It had a distinct white cross (like the Christian cross) on its back. Anyone know what kind this is, and if it’s dangerous? I want to make sure it will not affect my dog.
Thanks!
about a month ago, i was putting my shoes on in the car while i noticed this very small black spider on my shoe, it was black with 6 red dots on the top of its abdomen in a die/dice pattern, my mum said it was a widow, but i wasn’t sure, because all the pics i’ve seen that had black spiders that had red dots were 3 in one single line, is the spider im talking about a widow or no?
i live in Wisconsin, again the spider was very small, black and had red dots on the top of its abdomen in a die/dice pattern, and the the web/silk was stickier than most webs
My friend living in Montana took a picture of a neon orange colored spider with tiny spines all over it’s body. It doesn’t look like there are any other colors – body and legs are both orange.
I found a spider in my bathroom this morning. I need help identifying it. It looked like the legs were black-and-brown striped with a black back. The body is close to an inch long, I think, and the back end is pointy.
This spider was found outside my home making a web (as you can see) late in the evening… The next morning he was gone, but later that evening he was back….
Gross – Can you help me identify?
I live in Cleveland, Ohio – Picture was taken about 2 wks ago.
Very curious as to what this is. I live in New Jersey. Sorry for the bad quality, I was too chicken to go near the spider. Its about 1 and a half inches long, orange on the legs and a bit of red on the head.
My sister found a yellow and brown patterned spider with red and white stripped legs. We live in northern Illinois…any ideas?
I found in out upstairs room a pure black spider with two white stripes going down its back. I live in northern new jersey
This one has been living outside our door, His name is Raphael :)
Is he a Brown Recluse?
Hi,
We are in San Francisco, finding a new infestation of spiders. They have an African Mask sort of marking and are about 1/4-1/2 inch across abdomen. They trap insects and web fast! The colors are beige, tan and brown markings. Seem to be on top of the plants and stringing from tops of plants and trees. Thanks.
I came home from vacation and noticed a huge web and what I saw was the biggest,scariest looking spider I have saw in my area,I thought stink bugs were bad but I have never saw anything like this outside of t.v.! I looked for it the next day and it was not there so I was a little relieved but, during that evening it was back and it appeared to have gotten bigger! So because I have children and im scared to death of spiders because I never no which one’s are harmful and not to mentioned it only comes out at night so im very concerned where it goes during the day as well. Its the size of a humans thumbs,drown,with black dot on its belly and brown and black leg.
I am trying to find out what kind of spider is on back porch it has a around yellow body with black poke a dots on back and yellow at bottom of legs, it is not smiley face crab.
we found this spider in our house on the wall, we live in Virginia beach. can you tell us what kind of spider it is?
Saw this largish spider in my garage, can you help identify it please?
This spider was outside my home today.
I live in west Michigan…large web..outside my window.
Last night I found a spider in my backyard that had a shiny red abdomen with one white stripe, and white going around the sides of the abdomen. The head and legs were black, and this was a very very tiny spider! (much smaller than the pillbugs we were collecting, for lack of a better example.) I live in Southern Michigan, I haven’t been able to find the spider on the internet at all, and I didn’t have time to take a pic before it ran off. Please help me to identify this!
When I was a kid there was this abandon car from the bottom of the widow door down the web was that big and it was black and rainbow colored quite big. I don’t know if its possible to have rainbow colored spiders in Michigan but I’m scared of them and I never forgot it I cant find it online.
Greene NY I have a small about 2-3 centimeter spider always crawling in my bedroom. looks black.
While mowing our backyard I found these two spiders, the large one I think is a tarantula. The small spider I found already squashed on my patio, my neighbor thinks it’s a backdoor spider. I’d like to know what you think and if you know if it is poisonous?
I saw a spider in my vegetable garden today that I had never seen before and cannot identify. It was black and had yellow stripes going up and down the back with a yellow stomach area. Does anyone know what this is and if it is toxic or not. Thank you.
a few years ago i was hiking at Pine Hills park in indiana and by the river i saw a huge gray spider. the body was thick and about 3″x 1″ with thick legs about 4″ long; it was NOT hairy; it had a lighter spotted pattern on its back. with legs it was about 10cm. what in the world was it???
In Portland Oregon I have 2to spiders in my front yard with beige legs with dark stripes. Both have 2you legs in back or front not sure that stick out and form a “U”. On their underside they have a marking that looks like a cello or violin. Can someone tell me what they are?
We found a spider in Missouri climbing my blinds. Its body was about an inch long, it was all brown with a dark brown pointed line from its head to the middle of its back and it had a pointed rear. What is it?
I have the same spider above an air conditioner that Keegan has pictured. Does anyone know what it is? It’s out from dusk to dawn and then hides (I’m afraid in the AC or in the house) during the day.
Please identify this spider for me. It was found in a geranium on the north side of our house in the state of CT.
Thank you!
i found a spider in my truck today, it has yellow and black stripped legs, a brownish semi hairy body, and is about the size of a quarter, can someone help me?
PS this was found in new york
While picking grapes, I found lots of little spiders and some not so little ones. I live in middle California, and have a grape vine growing over the fence and into my tree. The webs seem to be quite thick, and some have funnels in them.
The spiders are a very pail yellow, almost white, the biggest one I saw looked a little hairy, but the little ones don’t. I haven’t been able to find anything like them online, and so can’t identify them. I’m worried they might be some kind of Brown Recluse. I have very little children (the oldest being five) and I want to protect them from being bitten. I don’t have any pictures, because I killed any I found.