Hello!! My husband found this guy in our garage and it was the largest spider I have ever seen in person. It's body was about 2" long and with the leg span it was almost the size of my hand. Can anyone identify it for me and let me know if it is poisonous he was definitely intimidating and I have small children?
This is a fishing spider (family Pisauridae) in the genus Dolomedes - see http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/fishing_spiders for an example. Like the vast majority of spiders, these do have venom glands and thus technically can be considered as venomous. However, they pose no danger to humans. See the 'sticky' on spider bites at the top of this forum.
