Southern House Spider
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The southern house spider is a species of large
spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...
in the family
Filistatidae Crevice weaver spiders (Filistatidae) comprise cribellate spiders with features that have been regarded as " primitive" for araneomorph spiders. They are weavers of funnel or tube webs. The family contains 18 genera and more than 120 described s ...
. Currently given the scientific name ''Kukulcania hibernalis'', it was formerly known as ''Filistata hibernalis''. Found in the
Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...
, it exhibits strong
sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...
. It lives in the southern states of the USA, throughout
Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...
and some of the
Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
, to southern
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
,
Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...
and
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
. The males may be mistaken for brown recluse because the two have similar coloration and body structure. However, compared to the brown recluse, male southern house spiders are typically larger in size, lack the distinctive violin shape on their
cephalothorax The cephalothorax, also called prosoma in some groups, is a tagma of various arthropods, comprising the head and the thorax fused together, as distinct from the abdomen behind. (The terms ''prosoma'' and ''opisthosoma'' are equivalent to ''cepha ...
, and have unusually long slender
pedipalps Pedipalps (commonly shortened to palps or palpi) are the secondary pair of forward appendages among Chelicerata, chelicerates – a group of arthropods including spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs, and sea spiders. The pedipalps are lateral to ...
. The females are dark brown or black and more compact. Both sexes may grow to be roughly across (legs extended), with the males typically having longer legs, and the females often having larger, bulbous bodies. The
abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the gut, belly, tummy, midriff, tucky, or stomach) is the front part of the torso between the thorax (chest) and pelvis in humans and in other vertebrates. The area occupied by the abdomen is called the abdominal ...
of the southern house spider is covered with fine
velvet Velvet is a type of woven fabric with a dense, even pile (textile), pile that gives it a distinctive soft feel. Historically, velvet was typically made from silk. Modern velvet can be made from silk, linen, cotton, wool, synthetic fibers, silk ...
y light gray hair. Female southern house spiders are rarely seen, as they build radial webs around crevices, for which reason their family (
Filistatidae Crevice weaver spiders (Filistatidae) comprise cribellate spiders with features that have been regarded as " primitive" for araneomorph spiders. They are weavers of funnel or tube webs. The family contains 18 genera and more than 120 described s ...
) is called crevice weavers. Females seldom move except to capture prey caught in their webs. Males, on the other hand, typically wander in search of
insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...
s and females to mate with, having no particular territory. The southern house spider is a cribellate spider. That is, its
spinnerets A spinneret is a silk-spinning organ of a spider or the larva of an insect. Some adult insects also have spinnerets, such as those borne on the forelegs of Embioptera. Spinnerets are usually on the underside of a spider's opisthosoma, and ar ...
do not produce
adhesive Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation. The use of adhesives offers certain advantage ...
webbing. Instead, to capture
prey Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not ki ...
the spider uses its legs to comb webbing across its
cribellum Cribellum literally means "little sieve", and in biology the term generally applies to anatomical structures in the form of tiny perforated plates. In certain groups of diatoms it refers to microscopically punctured regions of the frustule, or ...
, a spiked plate near the spinnerets. This combing action frays and tangles the strands, producing a fine,
velcro Velcro IP Holdings LLC, trading as Velcro Companies and commonly referred to as Velcro (pronounced ), is a British privately held company, founded by Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral in the 1950s. It is the original manufacturer of ho ...
-like netting that ensnares insect legs. Male southern house spiders sometimes appear aggressive, but they do not
bite Biting is an action involving a set of teeth closing down on an object. It is a common zoological behavior, being found in toothed animals such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and arthropods. Biting is also an action humans participate ...
unless trapped, and their mouthparts are too small to easily penetrate human skin. They do, however, have an unnerving tendency to crawl across anything in their path regardless of whether it is alive. This is not aggression; these spiders are simply nearly blind and cannot see larger animals. Indeed, these spiders instinctively play dead if they feel threatened (a tactic which is effective against their common
predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...
s). Southern house spiders are capable of crawling through crevices as narrow as 1/4 in (0.66 cm) due to their elongated bodies and compact legs.


Reproduction

The southern house spider mating ritual is a lengthy (over an hour) and elaborate process with long periods during which neither the male nor the female moves considerably. When the wandering male encounters a female's web, there may be an initial confrontation where each scares the other. Upon recovering, the male then constructs a large web around the female's crevice. When this web is complete, the male pulls on its strands continuously to draw the female out of her hole, which may take several minutes. Following her emergence, each spider will tap at the other in an effort to grasp the other by the forelegs, with the male remaining suspended in his web. Females of ''Kukulcania hibernalis'' produce clutches containing approximately 129 eggs. Each egg measures about 1.37 mm in diameter and weighs around 1.42 mg. The average female body mass is about 347.0 mg.


References


External links


South house spider pictures and info

Picture of ''K. hibernalis''
(free for noncommercial use)

on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures Web site
''Kukulcania hibernalis'' species guide
on Spiders.us
''K. hibernalis'' male
on BugGuide.net {{Taxonbar, from=Q1647720 Filistatidae Spiders of North America Spiders of South America Taxa named by Nicholas Marcellus Hentz