# What are the most common spiders you see? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2007, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803 "2007-04-12T14:22:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803/21 "2007-04-16T11:51:01Z")
The most common spider I see around here is a little gray one. I’m not sure what type it is, I’ve always just called them “house spiders.” I’ve seen plenty of daddy long legs too. I’ve always been content to let those live. Not all spiders receive that sort of tolerance. Once I saw a _huge_ black spider in my apartment. It may have been a black widow, but I didn’t bother to look for the hourglass marking. I just made sure it was good and dead, and then flushed it down the toilet. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803/22 "2007-04-16T16:03:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Glad to see someone got daddy long-legs right. Wish I had! Tastes like peppermint? Any chance of more on this? How would you get enough to even get a taste. Back when I was in Boy Scouts, they were abundantly found on campouts. Some of the more adventurous guys (myself not included) would let them crawl around inside their mouths for a while, then spit them out. So I’m guessing that whatever it was with the pepperminty taste was at the ends of their legs. And acromantulas are creatures from the Harry Potter books. They’re about 15-20 feet across, intelligent, and highly venomous, and they tend to regard anything that moves (including humans and other acromantulas) as food. The one I linked to was named Aragog, as he appears in the movies. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803/23 "2007-04-16T16:11:38Z")
[http://www.camelspiders.net/](http://www.camelspiders.net/) Not local but these are interesting spidies. The claim has been they numb you and eat your nose or lips while you sleep. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803/24 "2007-04-16T16:19:22Z")
LBS–very common in the house. Sometimes ghostly white-off-white-sort of beige little ones. More spectacularly, catface spiders–large, weave lovely orb webs and hang in them all night. ---
**Author:** ![percypercy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@percypercy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/percypercy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803/25 "2007-04-16T16:46:04Z")
I don’t like spiders. It used to be a straight out fear, but then I fell in love with orb weavers, so they’ve helped to redeem their kin somewhat. We’ve got little brown spiders, daddy longlegs, and brown recluses around here(I think in this definite area, certainly nearby, my brother’s first house was infested, great story). I haven’t seen any black widows here, but I’ve seen them at my parents’ farm about an hour away in Arkansas. -Lil ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803/26 "2007-04-16T17:08:45Z")
There was a study a couple years ago. A city in Missouri was checked and 80% of the homes had brown recluses in them. ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803/27 "2007-04-17T14:52:46Z")
Thank you everyone for the wonderful replies. I have been delighted to see how much similarity there is across the world. That really helps me with the book, because it means the experience with a spider, say a wolf spider or orb weaver, is relevent to readers everywhere. **Gleena** - thank you for the quarter. I supect what you are seeing is a garden orb weaver. They are a world wide family, and similar the world over. I wish i could see one of these for real: [QUOTE= **jovan**] I see a lot of spiders around here. The most common, by far, is the beautiful _jorou-gumo_, or _nephila clavata_. I took some good pictures a few years ago, but they’re not digitized. Here’s what I found on the web (the last picture is particularly good): [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ja/4/4e/Jorougumo-1.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ja/4/4e/Jorougumo-1.jpg) [http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA003100/insect3/Jokumo15.jpg](http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA003100/insect3/Jokumo15.jpg) [http://homepage1.nifty.com/s-ozeki/gazo/bangai/shizen/shizen2.jpg](http://homepage1.nifty.com/s-ozeki/gazo/bangai/shizen/shizen2.jpg) [/QUOTE] I really wanted a Nephila on the cover of the book, although I have become so addicted to my wolf spiders, I was starting to change my mind. These are stunning, **jovan**. I think I’m back to Nephila. Mind you, the publisher does the cover and authors often have little say. Great to see others have been won over by the orb weavers, as I was. I hadn’t heard the term catface spiders before. Thanks for that. I need all these common names. The camel spider optical illusion photo has done well. Thanks **gonzomax**. The site given still gives the wrong impression, even though it seems to be technically correct. Another version is on snopes: [camel spiders on Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp) . Thanks for the Harry Potter explanation, **Chronos**. All the references to spiders are really really useful and much appreciated. It gives me a much better idea of what is common experience and what is not. Thank you. Lynne ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803/28 "2007-04-17T23:30:14Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] [http://www.camelspiders.net/](http://www.camelspiders.net/) Not local but these are interesting spidies. The claim has been they numb you and eat your nose or lips while you sleep. [/QUOTE] i saw that pic at [snopes.com](http://snopes.com) and imediately hollered for joel, our laboratory manager at the treatment plant i work at, to come look. he’s a veteran of the gulf war. ‘oh, yeah,’ he said after a glance, 'camel spiders. yep. they’re that big. we used to catch ‘em, toss a couple into sleeping bags and let them fight it out.’ obviously there wasn’t much else for tankers to do during the war after the republican guard got shut down. ‘they bite, but it’s no big deal, and they don’t attack camels,’ he added without batting an eyelash. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-common-spiders-you-see/399803.md?page=1)