Help identify my spider

Factual Questions
1

I live in the northeastern US, and there’s a spider hanging out in the corner of my bathroom. She’s pretty large. It’s about six centimeters across, including very large legs with a ball at the first joint away from the body only. Her abdomen is kind of a narrow cylinder, and pointed at the end. The head is kind of hard to see, because of the HUGE FREAKIN’ SPHERICAL EGG-SAC she is carrying around.

I’d like to know what she is, partly out of idle curiousity, and partly because if this species ridiculously venomous, now is clearly the time to sqash.

If anyone knows a good all-purpose spider identification website, that would be totally awesome. We have a lot of spiders in our house. :slight_smile:

2

Does it have a web that you can describe at all?

Is she shiny or hairy?

What about the coloration? Colors help more than just about anything in identifying a spider.

3

Tangle web, shiny, light brown with no distinctive marks. (Thanks, Max!)

4

Here’s a spider identification key.
Found it through this and this, which give taxonomy and other information needed to use the key.

5

I am pro-spider because they keep insect pests to a minimum. But I must say that I would blanch at having a 6 cm. or 2-3/8", spider in the house.

6

I found that key as well; problem is, it only covers the spiders of northeast Oregon.

So far the closest I can come up with is “hobo spider”, but I don’t think that’s it at all. Can you tell us, maybe, how this picture differs from the spider you’re seeing?

7

Oh, one other possible you may want to compare with is the nursery web spider. They say it carries its egg sac around with it until hatching time is near.

8

My spider is much more gracile than the nursery web spider or hobo spider. I made a boo-boo in the OP-- I meant to say that its legs are long rather than “large.” It looks more like a daddy-longlegs spider (Pholcus phalangioides, not an opilionid), except that it’s a uniform brown, and has the pointed abdomen, and it’s way bigger than the other daddy-longlegs we have around the house.

Looking at the nursery spider, I guess FREAKIN’ HUGE EGG-SAC is a relative term. :slight_smile: My spidey’s egg-sac is only about 1 1/2 - 2 times as large as its own abdomen. It also looks like a bunch of eggs stuck together, rather than a silk-covered ball.

Actually, it looks a little more like this, except that its head seems somewhat smaller, and its egg-sack is just a bit bigger, and its abdoment is pointed at the end. Maybe it’s just an odd-looking, freakishly huge daddy long-legs after all.

David–most of the size is taken up in legs, so it’s not as freaky as you might think.

9

Whoops, Sorry. I thought I had avoided that site, only to have it sneak up from behind and bite me.