My that's a large spider

[MarkBNJ]

I caught this fellow in the family room last week and ejected him from the house. Either he's back or he has an identical cousin.



For comparison purposes those linoleum squares are 4" on a side, so he is running a little over 2".



Any of you bug guys want to weigh in on the ID? My current best guess is he's a Fishing Spider.

Note that he was ejected from the property again, and deposited a fair bit further from the house. Will be interesting to see if he comes back a second time.

 

[Teegate]

Thats a nice one for sure! It is always interesting to find large spiders. Maybe not in the house!

Guy

 

[MarkBNJ]

Easily the biggest arachnid I've ever found in a place I was living, and that includes eight months in the Caribbean one year .

My wife and kids were sure he was deadly. I told them it's the small ones that get you, not the big hairy ones. If he's a Fishing Spider then they are harmless, and eat tons of bugs.

 

[ICANOE2]

I'm no expert, but it looks like a Wolf Spider to me.

Sorry to all the bug lovers, but I would have imideatly dispatched it if I found it crawling around the house.
Imagine that thing crawling on you in your sleep.

 

[woodjin]

I think you have a wolf spider there. They do get very big!

 

[MarkBNJ]

I took a close look at the Wolf. Several sites say that the Fishing Spider is often mistaken for a Wolf. The Wolf isn't as large, and the carapace doesn't seem quite right.

My money is still on Fishing Spider.

 

[jburd641]

I'm no expert, but it looks like a Wolf Spider to me.

Sorry to all the bug lovers, but I would have imideatly dispatched it if I found it crawling around the house.
Imagine that thing crawling on you in your sleep.

I'm with you on the dispatching. Spiders give me the willies ever since I ran, face first, into a big old Garden spider while playing hide and seek as a youngster. I shiver just thinking about it.

 

[Aaron]

Yea dont like spiders myself, never was afraid of them till about 8 yrs ago coming home from work i walked face first into a web, when i did i closed my eyes and felt something under my right eyelid. I pushed in on my eye till it stopped moving then went inside woke up my wife and she got the spider carcase out of my eye, talk about tramatic.

Now i get to kill big spiders at work all the time and it doesnt bother me at all

 

[Ben Ruset]

I still try to scoop them up in some sort of container and get them out of the house. Same with crickets and other various insect life I find in the house.

The only bugs that I kill on sight are chiggers and termites.

The only bugs that scare me (or at least give me the supreme heebie jeebies) are maggots.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

That's a big one.

I will weigh in and say fishing spider. I think the wolf spider generally has a bigger thorax and shorter legs.

Ben, I used to be the same about maggots. Then I had to start raising them. It took me a few years, but I have gotten to the point where I can handle large squiggling masses of them with my hands (gloved, of course). I still would not be able to hold onto them for very long though.

I suspect that one day I will get a cumulative attack of the heebie jeebies and that will be the end of me.

 

[tugwake]

Yes, it's a Fishing Spider

I'm not afraid of spiders as long as they aren't on me but that one might make me change my mind! I know a little bit about the fishing spider. It will lay beneath the surface of water and eat small fish. If it can do that, it could also take a bite out of your toes. I doubt it would unless you make it mad.

Mark, are you close to the water? If not, you better look for a leak somewhere. Those spiders stay close to water.

Sue, handled any meal worms lately? We have an Australian Green Tree Frog that loves them. It grosses me out every time I've had to feed them to him.

 

[MarkBNJ]

Mark, are you close to the water? If not, you better look for a leak somewhere. Those spiders stay close to water.

Actually there are a number of members of that general family that don't live near water, but you're right that most do. We live on top of Schooley's Mountain in Northwestern Morris County. It isn't a dry area, by any means, and there can be standing water in my back yard after a heavy rain.

I've never seen one of these guys before, either in the house or around it.

 

[Furball1]

A Spider Story

My friend Tom is a big, strapping, weight lifter who has just one fear: spiders. Years ago we were canoeing a pine-barrens river, he in the bow and me in the stern, when we came to a deadfall that cleared the stream enough to allow the canoe to go under it if we layed back and pulled ourselves through. Well, when Tom layed back and got under the tree, guess what was under there looking at him with his zillion eyes? That's right, the biggest wood spider you ever saw. When he saw the spider he yelled, "OMG, SPIDER!!!" and proceeded to pull himself out from under the tree on the other side---unfortunately I was still upright and the tree trunk slammed me in the chest! I chose to hop over the tree rather than face the spider again, and we laughed so hard about it we nearly wet ourselves! Ahhh, the good old days!

 

[piker56]

My friend Tom is a big, strapping, weight lifter who has just one fear: spiders. Years ago we were canoeing a pine-barrens river, he in the bow and me in the stern, when we came to a deadfall that cleared the stream enough to allow the canoe to go under it if we layed back and pulled ourselves through. Well, when Tom layed back and got under the tree, guess what was under there looking at him with his zillion eyes? That's right, the biggest wood spider you ever saw. When he saw the spider he yelled, "OMG, SPIDER!!!" and proceeded to pull himself out from under the tree on the other side---unfortunately I was still upright and the tree trunk slammed me in the chest! I chose to hop over the tree rather than face the spider again, and we laughed so hard about it we nearly wet ourselves! Ahhh, the good old days!

I could make fun of Tom about spiders, but then he'd bring up all the times that snakes scared the daylights out of me and I made a fool of myself. Plus he's a lot bigger than me

 

[Sue Gremlin]

Sue, handled any meal worms lately?

Nope, just the fly maggot variety.

 

[tugwake]

We live on top of Schooley's Mountain in Northwestern Morris County. I've never seen one of these guys before, either in the house or around it.

Nice!

I sure hope you don't see anymore of them. They might make you want to hurt yourself.

Sue, I don't know if I can handle the maggots. The meal worms were bad enough.

One thing that made me almost hurt myself is those Northern Water Snakes. When I moved up here I was used to moccasins. I had no idea while wandering in the beautiful streams behind Allair Village with my dog that I would come across one of those but I saw MANY! First thing I thought is that they were moccasins. Now that I know (thanks to this forum) they are harmless, I'm not afraid of them at all. But imagine my initial shock?

 

[MarkBNJ]

I don't mind spiders, and the emotional reaction to that one was sheer fascination... on my part. My youngest daughter, who was the only one home when I spotted him, initially was rather freaked, but eventually agreed to sit behind the guy and lift the tupperware container on command so I could try to get some shots.

 

[tugwake]

Aww

She trusts her daddy!

Mark, midway in my career in law enforcement, I decided to become cross-trained and took a job with the Prison System (big mistake). The inmates used to find large spiders, put them in containers together and watch them fight. Me, I don't torture anything so I'd walk past them, slap the bottom of the container and the spiders would usually land on one of them safely. But you should have seen those tough guys run screaming. LOL! Not so tough now, aren they?

Notice I said, I don't torture anything? I didn't say anyone. It was both harmless and funny.

 

[woodjin]

I was in Wharton awhile back in about knee deep water and saw a fishing spider. He was absolutely huge! He could run across the water nearly as fast as we can run on dry ground. I later identified him and learned of their fishing abilities and, while amazed, was not surprised given their size and agility. Outside their natural environment and from photographs it is difficult to differenciate them from Wolf spiders. I would have never thought one would end up in someones house.

Jeff

 

[jerimichelle]

My friend Tom is a big, strapping, weight lifter who has just one fear: spiders.

Tom sounds like my twin