Arach-attack

[Gavin Hannah]

Hey guys, hoping someone on here is a spider fan. Long story short, need help identifying a spider.

After reading about the False Widow Spider in Britain, I think I found a small colony on my west facing skylight.

This is the closest image on google I could find to what I found. My own images where on a phone camera and not very clear. It's the same shape, almost identical markings (Perhaps a little darker in color) and had a single dark stripe on the underside of its abdomen. It also had orange/brown banded legs. Was appx. 1. - 1.5 cm (excluding legs) Abdomen was larger compared to rest of body than in this photograph (Suggesting female).

I found at least 8 - 10 egg sacks which I've tried to remove as much of.

Thanks guys.

[snow raven]

Moved from serious discussion to the nature area of NW

[Crepuscular Ray]

Good idea SR, more people with an interest might spot it here.

Hi IBHT - even if you're not happy with your own photos, could you post the clearest of them, please. It's difficult to i/d your spider from a picture of something similar from the web. Ta.

[Gavin Hannah]

Sure, they are not great, the camera is pants. You can really only get a sense of the size and shape of it.

[jethro]

Hard to determine patterns from those pics but what does stand out are the proportions of the Spider. The web shots of the False Widow and your pics have a marked difference in the size/proportion of the head to abdomen, judging from that I'd say they were two completely different spiders.

[Devonian]

Sure, they are not great, the camera is pants. You can really only get a sense of the size and shape of it.

Might help.

[Gavin Hannah]

Might help.

Thanks, still wasnt able to positively identify it as lots of those spiders look similair. I would say if it's not of the widow species then it looks damn close to it.

I read about how the false widow bites are like wasp stings and though rarely fatal, can put some people in A&E. There is also the possibility that the black widow may one day get a foot hold in the UK. There are plenty of news articles about Black Widows being imported in on goods/vehicles etc. So how many make it over and go undetected?