# Cellar spider

*Pholcus phalangioides*

**Identification confidence:** Identifiable with care

## How to recognise it

- Extremely long, thin, fragile legs — up to five or six times the body length — with a small, pale, elongated body.
- Colour is pale tan to grey, translucent, with a cylindrical abdomen.
- When disturbed in its web it vibrates rapidly, becoming a blur. This behaviour is characteristic.
- The web is an irregular, untidy tangle in ceiling corners, not an orb.

## What it leaves behind

- Loose tangle webs accumulating in ceiling corners, basements, crawl spaces, and garages.
- Accumulated shed skins and prey remains beneath the web.

## Why an infestation persists

Harmless to people and a frequent predator of other spiders, including species of greater concern. Persistent webbing indicates available prey and undisturbed space rather than a problem in itself. The widely repeated claim that they are highly venomous but unable to bite through human skin has no scientific support.


## Where it occurs

Throughout the United States, almost entirely indoors and in protected structures.

## What prevents it

- Remove webs mechanically with a vacuum or broom; they rebuild only where prey is available.
- Reduce exterior lighting that concentrates flying insects near entrances.
- Correct basement and crawl space damp.

## Commonly confused with

- **Brown recluse** (*Loxosceles reclusa*) — Six eyes arranged in three pairs forming a semicircle, rather than the eight eyes of nearly all other spiders. This requires magnification and is the only reliable diagnostic feature.
- **Black widow** (*Latrodectus mactans and related species*) — Mature females are glossy jet black with a red or orange hourglass marking on the underside of the abdomen — visible only from below, so the spider must be seen from underneath or in its web.

**Verdict:** prevention-first. Harmless, and mechanical web removal plus reducing the insect prey supply resolves the complaint entirely.

Source: https://againstpest.shop/identify/spiders/cellar-spider/