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This past fall, a male Tegeneria agrestis (the Hobo spider), shown above, dashed across my living room floor late one night.  It's size and rapid movement caught my eye right away so it was quickly scooped up and off to my lab for identification (the pattern of the eyes and structure of the male palps is diagnostic).  A month later a female of the same species also turned up in my living room.  The fall is the usual time to see these spiders moving about as it is their mating season.

This is a first record for this species in Williams Lake so I needed to get the identification confirmed.  Robb Bennett, a spider specialist  in British Columbia has now confirmed these as Hobos.

The Hobo has spread across southern BC over the past several years.  It has an ill deserved reputation for being venomous, giving rise to lesions around the bite site.  How this belief started is unclear, but physicians often spread this idea to patients with lesions of unknown cause.  The Hobo is a European species and there are no European records suggesting this spider is venomous.  Further, there are no confirmed problems with this spider here either, still the rumors persist.

How widespread this spider might be in Williams Lake is unknown.  It is unlikely, however, that the only male and female happened to end up in the home of someone who could identify them.

Photo Credit: Me.  Smallest units on the photograph are millimetres.