CLOSED: Please help ID this spider...Brown Recluse?

Juano11 Louisville, KY Aug 18, 2010

We live in suburban Louisville, KY. This morning my wife alerted me to a rather large spider in one of our toilets. Some fairly poor cellphone pictures are attached. (Sorry, it's the inside of our toilet)

It was brown/black between 1/2" and 1" long and was floating on top of the water. This area of the house is an addition that includes the garage. There is a concrete floored crawlspace under much of the addition that we have very poor access to due climate control vents. I've seen similar spiders in this toilet before, but never quite this large. Plus, since my wife saw it, I've now been charged with identifying it.

I do have some concern Re: Brown Recluse. We had a contractor leave our house about a year ago after saying he found recluses in our attic, that he had been bitten in the past, and knew what they looked like. We called a pest control company, but they said that they could not find any.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

John

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Juano11 Louisville, KY Aug 18, 2010

One more picture...

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suunto Sinks Grove, WV Aug 18, 2010

Most definitely NOT a brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa); much more likely to be a wolf spider (family Lycosidae); these often enter buildings while searching for prey. See http://tinyurl.com/d2r8dx for detailed information on recluse spiders in Kentucky. BTW, most reported brown recluse bites appear to be caused by something else entirely.

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Juano11 Louisville, KY Aug 18, 2010

You mention definitely NOT a brown recluse. That's good to know.

However, can you give me some info about how you came to that conclusion? To my eye, it does look like some of the pictures that I found online. Could you point out a detail or two that will help me convince my wife that it's not a Recluse?

Many Thanks

John

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suunto Sinks Grove, WV Aug 18, 2010

The link that I included in my first reply has images that should do the trick. Recluse spiders do not have any pattern on their abdomen, and lack any kind of striping on their legs, which are longer and thinner in proportion to their body than the one in your photos. Also, using images found on the internet for identification purposes is fraught with pitfalls; not only do unrelated species sometimes superficially resemble one another, I have come across some that were grossly misidentified.