Field Guide

The spotted fishing spider lives around ponds, slow-moving streams, swampy areas, and other damp places. It can run across the surface of water much like water striders and will dive for prey, including small tadpoles or aquatic insects.

The brown recluse is a spider whose venomous bite may be medically significant to humans, though a bite is almost never fatal. Brown recluses are most commonly encountered in houses, where they occupy little-used drawers, closets, and other small hiding spaces.

A wolf spider doesn't spin webs to catch its prey — it runs it down like a wolf! Spiders in this family have long legs and are usually gray, brown, black, or tan with dark brown or black body markings (especially stripes).

The bold jumper, or white-spotted jumping spider, is fuzzy, makes jerky movements, jumps surprisingly long distances, and doesn't build webs. It usually has a black body with white, orange, or reddish spots on the abdomen.

The black-and-yellow garden spider is large but harmless. It sets up large, circular webs in gardens and grasslands. Lucky gardeners can host this remarkable pest exterminator all season long.

The banded, or white-backed garden spider is slightly smaller than the black-and-yellow garden spider and has a pointier hind end. The abdomen is patterned with many thin silver and yellow transverse lines and thicker black, spotty lines.

The funnel-shaped web of grass spiders is more often noticed than the spider itself. It is sheetlike, usually positioned horizontally, with a funnel leading downward to a shelter (a rock crevice or dense vegetation) where the spider hides, waiting for prey.