Russia usually isn't the first country that comes to mind when you here the word "bugs". Peru, perhaps, or maybe Texas but not Russia (it's cold in Russia, and there are bears). Throughout the past week, though, I have found a lot of spiders in the house. They congregate in my bathroom for some reason. I've found small spiders that make small webs in the corner. I've found big hairy spiders that hang out on the wall. "No big deal," I told myself, "they eat the bugs." When I was in Ecuador, we had a tarantula the size of my hand living outside the door to my hotel room. Even that one didn't worry me too much, until one day he'd moved and we couldn't find him anymore. A couple days ago I found this guy (see picture) on the handle of the shower nozzle. I'm no arachnid expert, but the black, bulbous body and hourglass-shaped markings make me think it's a widow spider of some sort. That wouldn't be good. I took some pictures and then squashed him with the shower nozzle just to be safe. Anyone know what kind of spider this is? I scoured the internets for 30 minutes and gave up. I found two types of venomous spiders that live in Russia, but couldn't identify this one.
2 comments:
Could it be this one? The middle set of legs being perpendicular to the body seems to match, and the strange abdomen markings also.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Gnaphosidae/Gnaphosidae.htm
Close, but the markings aren't quite hour-glass shaped like on my spider.
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