Female funnel weaver spider
I think it was Rosie that spotted this spider in the house on October 4, 2015.
It appears to be a funnel-web weaver, most likely one of the ones in the common genus Agelenopsis. These look superficially like a lot of wolf spider species, but they have projecting spinnerettes (the two projections on the tip of the abdomen).
Most other spiders have their spinnerettes more hidden under their bodies so that they aren’t so visible, but in this genus the spinnerettes stick way out.
We can also see that this isn’t a wolf spider because of the eyes: wolf spiders have two enlarged eyes, while this one has eyes that are all about the same size (sorry about the blurry picture, but she wouldn’t face me directly).
The pedipalps are not enlarged at the tip, and that combined with the large abdomen makes me think that this is a female. Which is a bit weird, actually, because you don’t normally see the females in this genus wandering around away from their very characteristic funnel-shaped webs. Usually it is the males that go wandering. So I really don’t know what she was doing roaming around in our house.
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Well, when my wife is out wandering around for no apparent reason, it’s always because she’s shopping. I’d suggest that with that many feet, shoe shopping would be most likely.
Very cool! I never thought about how to differentiate these guys (or gals, in this case!) from wolf spiders. Thanks!