Help identifying spider in Costa Rica

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lilcaro San Jose, Costa Rica Jan 15, 2009

I have seen this spider around the house many times and concerns me that it may be poisonous. Any help identifying would be great!

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lilcaro San Jose, Costa Rica Jan 15, 2009

I should add head to rear was about 1 cm give or take a couple mm.

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suunto Sinks Grove, WV Jan 15, 2009

Without being able to see the eyes clearly, I cannot be certain; it most likely is a wolf spider (family Lycosidae - see http://tinyurl.com/9fogdr for an example). Wolf spiders may be distinguished by their noticeably enlarged anterior median eyes (see http://tinyurl.com/8p3tfo). If the eyes of your 'guests' all are roughly the same size, they could be wandering spiders (family Ctenidae) - see http://tinyurl.com/yz8ycc for an example. In either case, a bite from a large specimen would be painful but not dangerous (there are South American ctenids in the genus Phoneutria that are quite dangerous to humans) . Just as an aside, with the exception of one small family (Uloboridae), all spiders are venomous, but only a few species are truly dangerously so.

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lilcaro San Jose, Costa Rica Jan 15, 2009

Thank you for your reply. I'll go into the garden today and look around for some more. The one demonstrated was a smaller one I found inside the house, however outside I've seen them up to 2 cm from head to butt. They worry me because I found a 2cm one in my bathroom one night and it definitely gave me the creeps.

I did get bit about 4 weeks ago outside when I stood in the grass with sandals on. The bite hurt but it felt more like a prick like that of a mosquito bite. It was almost instantly red and continued to provide significant itchiness for 2 weeks. Finally I noticed 4 tiny blisters had formed near the bite. When I would rub it to ease the itchiness it would become red and slightly swollen. Finally after 3 weeks the skin started to die around the bite and flake off.

I don't think the mountain grass we have in our backyard helps any either. I've been told to change it for regular thick green grass as they don't tend to like it.

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