We had an old glue trap grab a mouse one day, so we set a bunch of newer glue traps... good news, no new mice. But when I was checking one of the traps I discovered a red spider with a fuzzy back-end. We live in Central New York state and I've never seen this type of spider before in our house. This spider is about the size of a dime. The location is an unused bathroom in the basement. Any ideas?
I would like to know what it is too because I saw one just like this in my garden the other day.
There are species in at least three families (Amaurobiidae, Dysderidae, and Gnaphosidae) that can have this general appearance. Based primarily on the shape of the cephalothorax and lack of visible spinnerets, I'm going to guess that this could be a woodlouse spider, Dysdera crocata - see http://tinyurl.com/22uoxme for an image. They can deliver a painful but not dangerous bite if mishandled.
