Clearly a Creepycrawlyamis Maximus if I ever saw one. Absolutely venomous and able to jump at least 100 feet in any given direction. A true man killer. Be careful my friend!

That is the easiest identification I have done in a while. That spider looks just like a dead spider.

We got some little spiders here that change color to match their surroundings. They are common garden spiders but it's neat to watch them change colors completely in about five minutes. My granddaughter and I were hauling one around to different flowers to see what colors it would change to. Nature is so impressive.

I killed a big wolf spider one day. It's body was about two inches long and three quarters of an inch wide. It was the size of a huge peanut. I don't usually like killing spiders because they eat a lot of bugs but this one if seen by my wife would have been disastrous. She would have had me spray everything around the house killing everything if she saw it. I guess it was a big female according to the research I did. I hate killing things for no reason but in this case it saved the lives of many more spiders and other insects. I like bugs that eat other bugs.

Many years ago I was spraying around the house to kill mosquitoes. They got worse because all the wasps and other preditor insects left. The birds didn't come around either because it killed the earthworms that attracted the robins. For many years I had to buy worms for fishing, I can once again go out and pick all I need within five to ten minutes. I will never spray anything again. There are hardly any mosquitoes around anymore also, the dragon flies are around now and they are gobbling them up. Nature doesn't need us to control the populations of bugs. If it is working properly it can keep things running smoothly. Wasps like to eat the bugs in the garden but don't like the taste of them when they are poisoned. I have learned to work with nature now, a great feeling. I work on the garden right alongside of the wasps and bees. I like the harvester spiders the best of all the spiders. I guess they are technically not a spider though. I think the person who classified them as not a spider needed glasses so he could see things better.

I saw a pine spider bigger than a tarantella here in the UP. I pushed it off a wall we built at a camp on the dead river and it died as it hit the floor. When I went up the step ladder and saw it at eye level it scared me. Of course my worker didn't believe me and went up and almost fell off the ladder when he saw it. We moved the ladder away from the wall and gave it a shove and it jumped off the wall. We put it in a bottle and the owner took it to the local university where it was identified. I guess these huge pine spiders are common in the woods. It's body was a little oblong and about three inches wide and four inches long and an inch thick. It had short thick legs on top of that. It only weighed at most a few ounces, impressively light for it's size. You wouldn't see it on a pine tree because it looked like a chunk of pine bark with legs, it would just look like a bump. I've looked for them for many years in the woods now and have not as of yet seen one on a tree because of their ability to blend in so well. I know they are out there though. I wonder how big they can get?

just a bit of a rant on this thread....

I just love spiders, and it saddens me so much when I see how many posters just kill them all.... Just do yourself a favour and study the amount of carcasses of insects they have eaten around their nests. You will be surprised by how many insects they eat. Back when I lived in Africa, I would count the amount of insect-carcasses around the liars of spiders that lived in my house, and it was a case of 50-100 mosquitoes every night... Although all true spiders are venomous, they would leave you alone, if you leave them alone. When I arrived in Norway, I was so relieved to find that many people believed it was bad luck to kill a spider.

Learn about the spiders in your area, see which ones you should avoid. Don't kill spiders, if you are uncomfortable with them in your home, catch them and put them outside. If you are too scared of that, ask somebody else to do it for you, but please don't kill them. They serve a very important role in their ecological niche.

If by any chance it is an unknown species it would be wise to capture it without injuring it so the proper study of the species could be done.. If it turned out to be a known species you could simply release it.... Just think, if it is an unknown species , you should be the one to name it...

Originally posted by rickymouse

It's body was a little oblong and about three inches wide and four inches long and an inch thick. It had short thick legs on top of that.

i'm pretty sure i would have had a heart attack if i saw that in person. spiders scare the crap out of me but if i see one i try to get it outside and not kill it. Gotta let it get those mosquitos

I hope it's not the famous and much feared "as seen on tv"....african barking spider.....