Ok, first I will have to say that I get sooo sick of people thinking every spider that is black or has any kind of spot on it is a black widow.

So, here is my question:

1.) What type of spider is small, about 3/8 of inch long, has short furry legs and is, in general fuzzy all over. It is NOT a black widow, I assure you.

2.) What type of spider is the one that most people in Southern Texas call a Daddy Longs Spider. The legs are very long and skinny and the body or abdomen is very small, about the size of your smallest fingernail.

3.) What type of spider is the one that most people call a banana spider? When I was a kid, all of us kids would go find one each and have spider wars with them. It was fun.

4.) What kind of spider is small, with an abdomen not much larger than a daddy longlegs, has many "spines" on the outer edges and comes in many colors from blue, green, red, orange and some others?

All of these are all over the place around here and we used to play spider wars with all of them and, once again, they are not Black Widows, I assure you.

Have you gone to any websites that have lots of color images to help ID your spiders? It's really difficult with you providing photos. I suggest you do a yahoo or google search on "Spiders of texas" or something like that to help ID them.

Yes, many but when you even mention black, and any other color together, for that matter, Black Widow incessantly pops up. I assure you, it is not a Black Widow.



I have not seen one in years as I live in town now whereas I grew up with the woods right on the other side of fence that was about 30 feet from our house, so it is kind of hard for me to supply a photo.

Ok, so the one we used to have wars with and looked like what we called a banana spider is really a Golden Silk Orbweaver.

The daddy longlegs is just what we called it, a daddy longlegs.

The one that comes in many colors is called a Spineybacked Orbweaver.

I will get back with you if I identify the small, black furry one.