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Comments & ID Thoughts
While exploring a cave near Warm Springs, VA, we came across a couple dozen of these spiders just inside the cave entrance. Also near the spiders were some egg sacks, which looked white and cylindrical. The spiders weren't in a web, but just holding on to the cave wall, which were also covered in crickets. Our initial guess is something in the false widow family, since the spider were completely black except for the orange/red skull figure on their backs (see photos), but would love hear if anyone has a specific idea on the species.
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Apr 28, 2024
- Photographed: Apr 14, 2024
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Warm Springs, Virginia, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Cave
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
I am really not sure…there is a chance this is a cave orb weaver called Meta ovalis. Their legs are banded….but there is a chance that they looked solid black in the darkness of the cave….their egg sacs are not cylindrical though…see what you think
https://bugguide.net/node/view/305227/bgimage
This is a pic of its egg sacs
https://bugguide.net/node/view/986049/bgimage
Thanks and after a lot of reading on Meta ovalis I’m about 50% sure it could be that. I plan to head back into the cave in mid-May. During that visit I’ll be looking more closely for banded legs, shape of the egg sac, and taking better photos of both.
Is there anything else I should observe (or photograph) to help with identification?
A good photo of the eyes would help.
I love a good mystery! I’m a caver and this particular cave is a very tight squeeze, which basically means the spiders are just 6-12 inches from my face.
Around May 18th I plan to explore more of the cave, and will try to get some better lighting and photographs of their eyes, legs, top of abdomen, and eggs.
They were on the cave walls, instead of in webs, so unsure if I can get a picture of the bottom of their abdomen, but will see.
I’m about 90% sure this is a Steatoda nobilis. They have been turning up in east coast states the last decade.
No Dan. I am 90 % sure that it isn’t. S nobilis has really done well where I am in southern Ireland. I have at least 50 of them in my back garden. So I am very familiar with them.. I have never seen one with this type of pattern.
No argument, but patterns vary so much within species, it is a poor key for ID.
Where photos permit, I try to spot 4 or 5 keys, then a best guess.
Close examination under a microscope is the only positive way to ID spiders.
I’m pretty sure this is not a Steatoda sp. It might be a Therrid like Euryopis funebris. https://bugguide.net/node/view/1185266/bgimage Euryopis spp have pointy posteriors like this one has.
I didnt note that, thanks.