North American Spiders It is said that some three-quarters of the human population is intimidated by spiders in one way or another - about 3,400 species reside in North America alone. Spiders can generally be identified by the type of web they create though not all webs are used to capture prey.

Spider Identification - an adult spider is 1/4 to 3/4 inch in body - a dark violin shape is located on the top of the leg attachment region with the neck of the violin pointing backward toward the abdomen. Unlike most spiders that have 8 eyes, the brown recluse has 6 eyes arranged in pairs - one pair in front and a pair on either side.

The most famous is the black widow spider that can cause a non-fatal nasty bite. However, poisonous spiders can also be brown, black with white spots, or black with a red body. It is important to identify the correct species of spider to tell harmless house spiders apart from ones that bite.

Spider Identification Community Calling all Novices, Experts and Arachnophobes. Spider ID is an online collective of amateur and professional spider enthusiasts. Register to contribute to Spider ID’s growing library of spider pictures and educational information.

What they look like: There are more than 200 species of wolf spiders found around the country, and they can range in size. “The largest species can be up to an inch and a half long,” says Potzler.

Other spiders found in Georgia include the star-bellied orb-weaver, southeastern wandering spider, various species of the jumping spider, huntsman spider, eastern parson spider, varying species of the fishing spider, furrow orb-weaver, southern house spider, green lynx spider, and the curiously shaped arrow-shaped micrathena.

A few years ago, researchers became aware that the colorful Joro spider and it’s arachnid cousin, the banana spider, were taking a liking to the central and north part of the state.