The triangulate cobweb spider

The Triangulate Cobweb Spider (Steatoda triangulosa)

Ahaa! Finally A spider for me to talk about! And what a spider it is! The Triangulate Cobweb spider, Part of the family of Theridiidae Also known as Comb footed spiders, button spiders, or bud spiders. This was quite a debate inducing specimen for my dad and I when we were trying to identify it. These guys are all over my garden, and for years I have confused them with The brown widow, but today I decided to confirm whether it was really a widow or not, by catching one and examining it, after determining it was not a widow, I then went on a grueling research on the web to determine what kind of Comb footed spider it was. This was harder than it looked, but finally I found something.

All right here we go! The Triangulate cobweb spider is part of the family of Combfooted spiders as I have already said. It is part of the genus "Steatoda" which are commonly known as "False Widows" hence, people constantly get the Steatoda genus confused with the Latrodectus genus or, "True widow" Because they look so much alike. I even made that mistake until I examined this pretty specimen and found no hourglass underneath. Yep, all widows in the Latrodectus genus have a red or orange hourglass shape under their abdomen, which makes them so easy to identify, yet so easy to confuse. Because the often hide in corners, people do not see the underbelly of these spiders, and furthermore do not want to look any closer, and pass them off as widows and kill them.

Ok back onto the original spider I'm posting about. This spider is found pretty much all around the world, all Comb footed spiders are. The way to identify them is that they are often a brownish colour, and have distinct purple, red, or even yellow zigzags going up the back of their abdomens. because of this, white triangle shapes are formed in between the zigzags. They can also have a small white dot on the back where the hourglass would be on a Widow. These spiders make tangly cobwebs under windowsills, in cupboards etc. Not much is known about this spiders venom, some false widow species are known to give similar bites to their widow counterparts, only a lot less potent. But let me tell you now, we DO know for sure that these guys cannot kill a man. Their venom is not powerful enough and no deaths have been recorded due to these spiders ever.

This may be where you guys would disagree, but you are better off leaving the spider in our house than taking it out. Here's the reason. The False widow genus EAT the True widow Genus. Meaning, if you have a few of these in your house, chances are very slim that you will have a true widow in your house, which are more dangerous. These spiders also prey on other insects people would consider pests, stink bugs, moths, ants. Basically anything that enters their web. This spider has very poor eyesight, they rely on the vibrations in their web to tell if there is a predator or prey approaching. Meaning they will often hide away. before you even get a chance to see one, also reducing the chances of an encounter with one.

Now for the pictures!!



This one is a female as you can see. The male is only around one mm long, where the female can grow from 3mm to 6mm



You can clearly see the white triangles on the back, which is how I made my conclusion.



And finally, the side view. This is pretty much the shape of all spiders in the Comb footed spider family, give or take. Huge abdomen, long curled legs and a small head.

I hope this blog post was interesting and that you are less scared of spiders now

As for me, Simon out!