This is a project that I’ve been working on for a while, identifying the spider species that I have photographed in my home and yard in Upstate South Carolina over the past 20 years. Spiders are by far the most diverse class of animals that I have noticed and photographed. I have 45 species at least roughly identified with 2 new species added just this week (there may be a mistake or two.) Plus there were other spiders that were too small for even a marginally clear photograph, and surely others uncommon enough or with an out-of-the-way enough habitat that I’ve never encountered them while I had a camera in hand, so I expect the true number of species just on my small plot of land to be well north of 50.
Not well north, it seems.
https://spiderid.com/locations/united-states/south-carolina/
Nothing definitive about that list. It has ones I don’t have, I have ones that it doesn’t have, and that list has the same restraints (size, rarity, obscurity) that mine has. The combined total of both lists is the floor, not the ceiling.
When you add the two lists together there are 81 species.
Neat.
I have not characterized all the species running around inside our house, of which there are probably a considerable number.
One chubby specimen has strung a web between our two big butterfly bushes, perfectly positioned to catch monarchs and a small yellow and brown butterfly that are thronging the plants. No evidence of success yet.
Live and let live, I say.
The light on my camera at night attracts moths. I’ve seen them bounce off spider webs.