Southern House Spider
HarmlessKukulcania hibernalis · also called crevice weaver
The male southern house spider is the most common false brown recluse in the deep south. It is tan, long-legged, and turns up indoors — but it has eight eyes, obvious boxing-glove palps, and is roughly twice the size of a recluse.
Quick facts
- Bite risk
- Harmless. Not medically significant, despite being reported as a recluse constantly.
- Size
- Body 9–19 mm. Females are stocky and velvety; males are slimmer with much longer legs.
- Appearance
- Females are dark grey-brown and velvety with short legs. Males are lighter tan, long-legged, and have conspicuously enlarged palps at the front that look like small boxing gloves.
- Web
- Radiating messy silk emerging from a crack in masonry or around a window frame — a distinctive starburst of tangled threads around a central hole.
- Found in
- indoors, garage, garden
- Family
- Filistatidae
- Range
- 11 US states
How to identify a southern house spider
- Males have two obviously enlarged palps at the front of the head, like small clubs.
- Eight eyes in a tight cluster, not six in three pairs.
- Radiating tangled webbing from a crack in brickwork or around a window frame.
- Larger than a recluse, with proportionally much longer legs.
How it behaves
Females stay in their crevice web for years. Males wander in search of them and are the ones found indoors.
What the southern house spider is confused with
One observation settles each of these.
Recluses have six eyes, no enlarged palps, plain legs and a violin mark, and are much smaller.
Where it lives
If you think you were bitten
- Most suspected spider bites are not spider bites. Studies of patients presenting with a “spider bite” repeatedly find that the large majority are bacterial skin infections — frequently MRSA — which need antibiotics rather than reassurance. A spreading, painful, pus-filled sore is far more likely to be an infection than a spider.
- Wash it, ice it, and watch it. Clean the area with soap and water, apply a cold pack, and keep an eye on it.
- Get medical care if the wound spreads or darkens, if you develop cramping, sweating, fever or severe abdominal pain, or if you are confident it was a widow or a recluse.
- Bring the spider only if it is already dead and to hand. Do not go looking for it. Doctors treat symptoms, not species.
In the US, the Poison Help line is 1-800-222-1222. This site is a reference, not medical advice.