Unfortunately, all I had on me to take a photograph with was my cell phone...so the picture is pretty terrible and blurry. However, this guy was hanging out on my T.V. and was probably about 1/2 an inch long and 1/4 inch wide. There were definitely 8 legs, and here's where it got a little weird: the "head" of this insect was a very wide oval shape, and the abdomen was long and narrow, and I haven't ever seen a spider like that, which led me to wonder if it's another species within the same family. The underbelly and legs were a dark grey or black, and the upper part of the body was a light brown. Totally mellow, had no problem being coaxed into a glass jar and taken outside. I didn't see any web of any kind, either.
I'm not worried that he'd hurt me or anything, I'm just strangely fascinated by him and would like to know if anyone could identify him...I have spent the last two hours surfing through google images & this website's insect identification forum, and saw nothing like him!
Again, sorry for the terrible picture quality, it is a cell phone after all :] Thanks for your help!
CLOSED: yet another spider identification [at least I think it is.]
This most likely is a jumping spider (family Salticidae). They are active hunters with excellent (for spiders) eyesight. See http://tinyurl.com/lqfbm for some examples.
looks like a match to the platycruptus undatus! http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74/jumping_spiders_genus_platycryptus_
although its hard to tell scale-wise the body type and markings look really similar...[even though I've learned on this site that markings can vary wildly and it's not really the greatest way to identify a spider].
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