I live in Holland, Michigan. Just moved out here from Texas so I'm not familiar with all the different bugs and animals that live here. I've found 2 of these spiders in this week alone. I have two little boys and need to know if this spider is harmful and if I should worry. It's fairly small maybe about an inch or just over an inch including the legs. If you can please help.
Thank you
It has the coloration of a Wolf Spider. If it is, and just an inch, it is a baby spider. Most wolf spiders stay outside, you didn't say where you saw it. They usually only come inside if they are looking for insects, in the summer there are plenty outside.
I had 6 adults over a period of 3 weeks IN MY HOUSE last year, they were looking for insects. You would need to look it up on the internet to see if they are poisonous, I'm thinking they can be. They are not suppose to be aggressive towards people, just their insect prey. But I would warn my boys to not aggravate them....you know how little boys are.....LOL.
All spiders are venomous to some extent.
Just try to look at them this way....
They'll bite like a bee stings, except they don't chase after you when they're angry!
They're more likely to run and hide.
It could even be a Philodromus like:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/13533
Nothing deadly, though it will, like any other animal, defend itself if necessary!
Tell your kids to treat spiders as they would a bee, or ant, or any other biting/stinging animal.
With respect and caution!
I agree with LadyAshley that this spider is in the famly Philodromidae, and thus harmless to humans. I doubt that it would be capable of biting through human skin. BTW, there is one family of nonvenomous spiders, the Uloboridae (hackled/cribellate orbweavers) - see http://tinyurl.com/py6y78
Wow =D
Penny for my thoughts!
Thank you so much for your help.
Both I found were on the ceiling. The first one was just hanging out right in the middle of the hall way the whole day and the second was walking on the ceiling of a bedroom two days later. I was going through pictures and found it looks a little like a hobo spider does anyone else agree?
http://www.tandjenterprises.com/images/hobo%20spider%20web%20inside%20big.jpg
I think that if my boys were old enough to warn I would of course always keep a watch out but not worry as much. My oldest is only 2 and my little one is only 5 months that's why I'm really interested to know if its dangerous.
You needn't worry - Hobo spiders do not occur anywhere near Michigan - see http://tinyurl.com/q4vwyz for a distribution map. Also, your spider looks nothing at all like a hobo spider - see http://tinyurl.com/cmphed for detailed information on how to differentiate hobo spiders from others of similar appearance. The only truly dangerous spider native to Michigan is the northern black widow, Latrodectus variolus - see http://tinyurl.com/qt9r9c
http://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=hobo+spider&search=Search
That picture is very blurry on the hobo spider =)
If you check this link, you can see they really look much different!
Thank you so much for easing my mind a bit. I've found quite a few different kind of spiders here that I've never seen before. Being originally from Los Angeles, CA the most we would usually see inside were long legged cellar spiders. Next time I'll take a much closer clearer picture.
again thank you!
