around here somewhere

By thehammerton

False widow?

I'm fairly sure this is Steatoda nobilis, the False Widow spider, now with added notoriety due to fairly hysterical and inaccurate coverage in the media as one of the few venomous spiders in the UK that can inflict a bite on humans. This one has set up home on the kitchen windowsill and doesn't appear to be hellbent on attacking anyone larger than a medium sized fly; in fact it tends to run for cover whenever approached, so it took me a while to sneak up close enough to get this picture without disturbing it.

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