Barn funnel weaver

Conservation Status

IUCN Red List

not listed

NatureServe

NNR - Unranked

Minnesota

not listed

Description

Barn funnel weaver is an exotic, medium sized, house funnel-web spider. It is native to Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. In was introduced into North America, probably with some of the first European settlers. It now occurs throughout the United States and southern Canada, but it is most common between the 40th and 50th parallels.

In its native region, barn funnel weaver is found in caves and in hollow trees. In North America it is usually found in the basement of human houses, in neglected buildings, and in gardens adjacent to those houses and buildings. Its widespread expansion has been made possible through the movement of humans.

Females are ¼″ to 7⁄16″ (7 to 11 mm) in length. The legspan is ¾″ to 1 3⁄16″ (20 to 30 mm). Males are smaller, ¼″ to 5⁄16″ (6.5 to 8.5 mm) in length. The body is hairy and yellowish brown, orangish brown, reddish brown, or beige (pale) with dark markings.

The front part of the body (cephalothorax) is longer than wide and much narrower in front than behind. The rear portion (thoracic region) is large, broadly rounded when viewed from above, and relatively flat when viewed from the side. The front portion (head region) is small, higher, straight sided, and narrow, about half as wide as the thoracic region. The upper part of the cephalothorax (carapace) is pale. There is a thin dark line on each lateral margin, and a pair of broad dark stripes in the middle extending from the eye region to the rear margin. The stripes are solid and unbroken. They have clean, straight edges, and they do not merge at the rear.

There are eight eyes arranged in two rows of four eyes each. The front row is almost straight, and the eyes in the front row are equally spaced. The anterior median eyes (AME) are smaller than the anterior lateral eyes (ALE). In the rear row, the eyes are almost equally spaced, and they are all about the same size. The jaw-like mouthparts (chelicerae) are slightly convex. Each chelicera has a very prominent, distinctly raised mound (condyle) on the outer side near the base, and a fang at the end. The fang rests in a groove (furrow). The lower margin of the furrow has 3 to 6 teeth.

The abdomen is pale with a dark cardiac mark on the front half and three longitudinal rows of dark spots on the rear half. The spots in the median row are chevron shaped. The spinnerets are not as long as on other funnel weavers (family Agelenidae), and they are often not visible from above.

The legs are very long. They are ringed, but the rings are often indistinct. The fifth segment (tibia) of each leg has two pairs of spines.

Size

Female body length: ¼″ to 7⁄16″ (7 to 11 mm)

Male body length: ¼″ to 5⁄16″ (6.5 to 8.5 mm)

Legspan: ¾″ to 1 3⁄16″ (20 to 30 mm)

Web

The web is flat sheet with a funnel in a corner or on a side that leads to a retreat. There is a concave pattern of snare lines above the sheet.

Similar Species

Habitat

The basement of human houses, other buildings, and gardens

Ecology

Foraging

Web builder (Passive Hunter)

Prey

Behavior

Life Cycle

Eggs overwinter in the web and hatch in the spring.

Season

Year round indoors, but it will not survive a Minnesota winter in an unheated space.

Distribution

Sources

24, 30, 82, 83.

Tegenaria domestica (Clerck, 1757) in GBIF Secretariat (2023). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org. Accessed 10/28/2024.