# Identify a spider (in the UK)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-a-spider-in-the-uk/737645>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 15, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-a-spider-in-the-uk/737645 "2015-11-15T20:34:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-a-spider-in-the-uk/737645/1 "2015-11-15T20:34:51Z")

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I’m used to house spiders/giant house spiders and daddy-longlegs spiders taking up residency in the house and I’ll also occasionally see the smaller hard-to-spot spiders like money and zebra spiders, but in my bedroom today I saw a spider I didn’t recognise in both the way it looked and behaved

It was about 1-2 cm long and of a sleeker-build than a house spider, but not as sleek as a daddy-longlegs. It’s four front legs were forward facing (compared to a house spider whose legs splay out).

When I saw it it was on the light fitting and it lowered itself on a thread near to, but not on to, the floor, then went back up to the light taking the thread with it. It did this about 2-3 times. I am guessing it must of somehow fired the thread a good 2m to the wall above my bed as it started to crawl along a thread to that point.

I decided I didn’t particularly want it lowering itself onto my head, so I lightly-poked it with a crutch I still had from when I injured my knee. Its first reaction was to actually turn on the crutch, as if to confront it head-on, even though it was much smaller than the crutch. It then fell onto the bed and as I tried to push it off with the crutch it hid itself in a small folds in the bed clothes. When I exposed the spider and tried to prod it again with crutch to encourage it to scamper off the bed, it curled up like it had died, it did this a couple of times before more prods made it realize it was fooling no-one and it scampered away.

My first reaction was that it might be a false-widow, hence the use of the crutch (I understand false-widows are much more bitey than your average British spider and also have a bite comparable to a wasp’s sting), but its abdomen was not that bulbous, certainly not any larger than a house spider’s in comparison to the rest of its body.

It is now safely ensconced somewhere in the corner of my room after a few hours later crawling from under the bed onto my pillow, only to be launched across the room on the said pillow.

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**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-a-spider-in-the-uk/737645/2 "2015-11-15T23:34:07Z")

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[Nursery Web Spider](https://www.google.com/search?q=nursery+web+spider&safe=off&rlz=1C1RNRC_enUS614US619&espv=2&biw=1600&bih=785&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMI55jy6suTyQIVhGMmCh1Nrwnq), maybe?