I was out taking pics of the black widows around my sisters apartment, and was very surprised to find this guy who was not a black widow, but a brown. I had no clue I was looking at something different until I was back inside and could see by more then the flash and a few dim street lights. In the dark, they look almost identical.Kingdom Animalia (Animals)Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)Subphylum ChelicerataClass Arachnida (Arachnids)Order Araneae (Spiders)Suborder OpisthothelaeInfraorder Araneomorphae (True Spiders)No Taxon (Entelegynes)Family Theridiidae (Cobweb Spiders)Genus LatrodectusSpecies geometricus (Brown Widow)
The common American house spider, close up and personal. They love my basement apparently and as long as they stay out of reach of curious kitty paws they are doing quite well down there, too. This is a female and she had a whole nursery full of tiny spiderlings close by.