A couple of weeks ago I went out to the dog kennel to feed the dogs like I usually do around 10:00 pm. When I turned on the light I got one heck of a surprise. Out of the corner of my eye I caught just a glimpse of movement above my head on the door frame. When I turned to get a better look I really literally did jump. Above my head was a HUGE spider! I think I had startled it when I had opened the door and turned on the light. And it definitely startled me. If you have read many of these posts, I’m sure that you have figured out that I’m not afraid of spiders, and in fact, I’m a pretty big fan. But I must say, I’m not especially fond of giant ones right above my head!

Once I got over being startled, of course my next reaction was to run (no, not run away!) and get my camera. I really hoped that it wouldn’t leave before I got back (it stayed there for two days, actually, so all the running wasn’t necessary after all!). As you can imagine, I took quite a few shots from as many angles as possible. After she (the females are larger than the males, so I’m sure this one had to be a female!) got over being startled by me, she was actually a very cooperative subject and didn’t mind my attentions at all. Her body was probably about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long, but with her legs, she was the size of my hand. As you can see, she also had good sized palps (all the better to bite you with my dear!), and was pretty hairy. Based on all these features, I was sure this spider was some sort of wolf spider or huntsman spider, but I couldn’t find one in all my research that looked like mine. It took me several days of research to discover that this spider was actually an old friend! She was a white banded fishing spider!

I’ve seen quite a few white banded fishing spiders in my ponds and water buckets over the years, and some of them have been decent sized, but none of them have been anywhere near as big as this one. Also, the others that I’ve noticed have been darker in color, especially on their heads, than this one was. But they can also be lighter colored than this one was, so just the markings don’t necessarily identify the spider. As I read more and more and looked at different photos, it became obvious that the wolf and huntsman spiders could also vary in their coloring and patterns, too. As I got further into my reading various articles discussed eye confirmation as part of the way to make an ID. Luckily, I had some pretty reasonable macro photos with the eyes in them, and it was obvious that this spider’s eye confirmation didn’t match either the huntsman spiders or the wolf spiders. The funny thing about all of this is that the first thing I did was put a couple of my images into the PictureInsect app, (spiders are not insects, but the app includes them anyhow) and it identified the spider as a white banded fishing spider, but I dismissed that because of it’s size and it’s coloring. Yet another surprise on me!

This big, beautiful girl hung around in the dog house for two days, and although she did move around, I was beginning to get worried about her. I was thinking that if she stayed inside much longer I was going to catch her and put her back outside, but when I came home that afternoon she was gone. I don’t know if she was hunting in the dog house (bug’s get in all the time) or if she was laying eggs, or if she just needed a break from the outdoors (probably not, I don’t think spiders go on vacation!), but whatever it was, I guess she was done. I’m just glad I got to see her. And I’m glad she didn’t fall on my head!

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