What kind of spider was that?

This post jogged my memory of a strange spider I saw that made territory at my window, and eventually found it’s way into my room somehow. I tried finding an encyclopedia for spiders to be found in North Carolina, and all spiders, but to no avail.

But anyways, the details of spider.

-Found in North Carolina (If you haven’t figured that out already), in the Triangle. The triangle is just Raleigh, Cary, and Durham, 3 cities.

-Length with enlongated legs… I would have to estimate at about my first segment of my thumb, the one without the nail. A fairly beefy spider, but no tarantula monster.

-It was black mostly, it has some yellow/white/I forgot what colour it was designs on the back.

-Big butt!!!

-Didn’t appear to make a web at my window.

-May be territorial (I found it outside my window alot. This is the time period of 1 month.)

-Did not make a web. That’s the reason I said it might be territorial, because after all, aren’t all spiders that make web-homes territorial?

And here is where I stutter and scream “IS THAT EVEN A SPIDER?” But since I had some time to study this spider when I saw it out my window. Most of the stuff before was only to identify it even closely, but it wasn’t that important.

The front two legs… were claws. Like a scorpion, but small. Clearly, it’d have to be something for me to call it a claw. Most spiders have small front two legs. But whatever, not the point either. It walked with them, although it was kind of a funky walk. It was like… Scurry scurry stomp(claw) scurry scurry stomp(other claw). Also, time to time, it would wave its claws around. It was doing this the first time I saw it, making me think “SCORPION!? AGAIN? I’M NOT INSANE!” (Earlier in my childhood I saw a scorpion crawling along my house’s sidewalk and another in some sort of vent thingy, and everyone would not believe me). But this can’t be a scorpion, because after all, the scorpion’s claws are the little two gobble gobble things at the spider’s mouth, just modified as how Darwin can explain.

And it had no tail.

It was pretty smart too, either that or it used chemical signals and tracks, but somehow, every time it left my window, it found it’s way back.

So tell me, what spider is this? And also, for the heck of it, please tell me and show proof that I’m not insane for seeing two scorpions in North Carolina.

Well, there is a native scorpion that occurs in North Carolina, as well as a couple of exotic species, so seeing one of them wouldn’t be out of the question.

As to what you’re describing, I can’t be sure of the species, but it sounds like a hunting/jumping spider (various, but usually Sitticus sp.) Most are rather drab and brown, but several species are quite colorful.

Also, they can sometimes appear to have tiny claws. That’s because they do. :slight_smile: They actively hunt, and they use those claws to grab prey. If you look at this page (Sitticus palustris, the striking red and black spider a little more than halfway down, in the left column,) you can sort of see them.

Bah. What you really need is one of these.

Probably a jumping spider. They can grow quite large actually and the two front appendages (mandibles?) look menacing.

The front appendages are called pedipalps.

Yeah that’s the name of the thingies. They are claws on scorpions, and some spiders yes. But not on the one I had. The front two legs were the claws.

OK, How about crayfish ?

The yellow and black makes it sounds like a garden spider which can be pretty freaking big

here are some pics

http://math.uc.edu/~chalklr/Natural%20History/Photos%20021-040.htm

scroll down a little and there is a couple pics, hmmm if the thing you saw had “claws” it might not be it, but some of the garden spiders have pretty big front legs and such
here is a closer up pic
http://www.billybear4kids.com/butterfly/spiders/garden-spider-closeup.html

I’ve always known them to have webs though, but they do have a rather large abdomen which would fit your description

I think I know the spiders you are talking about but I don’t know what the real name is - I live in North Carolina too and I call them crab spiders since that’s what they look like to me. They are pugnacious little things - if you stand over them they put those two appendages up like a boxer. I love the attitude - ‘you may be 1,000 times bigger than me, but touch me and I’m gonna kick yer …!’

We had one of those Black and Yellow Argiope spiders in our back yard the other day too. I swear the further south you go the bigger the bugs get (and yes I know spiders aren’t ‘bugs’ technically but you get the idea).