European House Spider from Office
So, on November 6, 2014, I was in my office at work, and noticed a good-sized spider scurry across the floor. Then about 10 minutes later, it scurried back. And then again after about another 10 minutes. And again. I could see that it was another European House Spider (Tegenaria domestica), a species which I’ve already posted a few times, so I was going to let it be. But, after about the 5th or 6th time scurrying across the same patch of open floor, I figured that this one must really want to be photographed, so I caught it in a jar and brought it home. Here it is on my index finger, for scale:
I think this is likely to be an immature female, judging from the fact that the pedipalps are not particularly enlarged and I’ve seen bigger specimens around. Since European House Spiders have actually moved into the house environment and no longer much care about what is going on outside, you can generally find them in all life stages pretty much any time of year. Although, we do mostly tend to see them in the fall.
The local ones generally have a kind of checkered pattern on the abdomen, but I don’t know if this is universal. They have spread all over the world, and given that spiders don’t fly, I kind of expect that local populations tend to develop particular little quirks.
A lot of people mistake them for wolf spiders, but the eyes are completely different. Wolf spiders have two big eyes over six little ones, while the European House Spiders only have the small eyes.
(Here are the eyes of an actual wolf spider, for comparison. Completely different).
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I declare a blogging foul! This spider is not from your property and therefore has no place on this blog. You’re bringing in players from outside your jurisdiction, clearly in violation of the rules!
🙂
I really liked the comparison photos at the end.