# Need help identifying an insect
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 8, 2011, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559 "2011-09-08T00:26:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/1 "2011-09-08T00:26:23Z")
Found it crawling around on some furniture in an apartment in northeast ohio. No idea what it is.
I wasn’t able to get a very good picture. In this picture it looks sort of like a spider but it wasn’t. Those front things were some sort of horns or pincers or something, not extra legs, so it’s six legged. The rear also looks like an almost spherical bulb, but in real life it looked more like some sort of relatively flat armored disc. I don’t have anything on there for scale, but the whole thing would probably fit onto a nickel.
[Mystery bug](http://imageshack.us/f/534/img32842.jpg/)
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/2 "2011-09-08T00:30:04Z")
That looks like a[jumping spider](http://utahspider.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/utah-spider-daring-jumping-spider.jpg) to me.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/3 "2011-09-08T00:35:23Z")
Jumping spiders look bigger, hairier, and more distinctly spiderish. Like i said, in the picture it looks like a spider but looking at it in person it wasn’t using those two front limbers/antenna/horns/pincers for movement, they seemed to be attached to its forward body or head.
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### Author:  [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/4 "2011-09-08T00:35:32Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> That looks like a[jumping spider](http://utahspider.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/utah-spider-daring-jumping-spider.jpg) to me.
Me, too. The combined head/body unit, rather than a separate head, definitely says “spider”. It may have used the front two appendages differently that the other six, but they are anatomically legs.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/5 "2011-09-08T00:42:40Z")
Definitely a spider (not an insect) and it sure does look like a [jumping spider](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phidippus_audax) to me.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/6 "2011-09-08T00:44:10Z")
Doubt this helps any because the pictures are lower quality but here are [two](http://imageshack.us/f/560/img3285a.jpg/) [more](http://imageshack.us/f/823/img32832.jpg/).
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/7 "2011-09-08T01:06:30Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> Jumping spiders look bigger, hairier,.
They are little bitty cute guys. They could stand on a quarter, a nickel if they pulled their feet in. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/8 "2011-09-08T03:46:20Z")
Take a look at this image here; [jumping spider](http://www.google.com/imgres?q=jumping+spider&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1348&bih=607&tbm=isch&tbnid=OXylkPub0nm0DM:&imgrefurl=http://hartmanprehistoricgarden.com/sa-phidippus.html&docid=_B9jf7ksKW4OIM&w=400&h=352&ei=-TdoTu2WJcTTgAel1e3QDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=176&vpy=282&dur=5930&hovh=211&hovw=239&tx=140&ty=121&page=8&tbnh=135&tbnw=151&start=126&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:126) - looks pretty close to the critter in your pic.
A lot of different [jumping spider pics](http://www.google.com/search?pq=castor+canidensis&hl=en&sugexp=gsis,i18n%3Dtrue&cp=9&gs_id=2h&xhr=t&q=jumping+spider&qe=anVtcGluZyBz&qesig=CSYLnMO1NT-5aybsO2g2HQ&pkc=AFgZ2tnEmyGvzTczfu6xbjTagDB3KnCbqGYmTwpuB9lXzLlmTt45ZWqu1QzxGR6wJpy3G6arrV4njlU9pTzpFXQwR7t6MDTM2w&client=firefox-a&hs=W3o&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1348&bih=607&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi), may not contain one that looks exactly like your specimen, but I think it’s almost certainly one of these interesting animals.
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### Author:  [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/9 "2011-09-08T09:03:00Z")
Awww he just wanted to [cuddle](http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/muj/#by=sp).
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### Author:  [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/10 "2011-09-08T23:04:24Z")
Your picture makes it look like a spider, but your description makes it sound like a tick.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-an-insect/595559/11 "2011-09-09T00:56:56Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#):
>
> your description makes it sound like a tick.
No way. 🙂