Species Identification Please

Ok I saw this beautiful thing on the wall beside my front door, outside and it was HUGE. Easily 5 or 6" diagonal. Maybe more. Wish I’d had something of know size next to her for reference. Can yall tell me what she is?

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Blurred for the naughty’ish’ word.
image

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I LOVE THAT!! So many folks I know think that way. My first thought was “wow that is big”. My second was “Do I need to set up an enclosure for that?”

In her all-knowing way, the wife said “no, it’s wild. But if you found a sling to raise…”

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You best get searching for those babies!
I’d love to know what it is if someone can tell you, looks very pretty… For a spider :sweat_smile:

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Spiders are just as lovely as Cresties in their own beautiful arachnid way!

This is either a fishing spider (Dolomedes sp.) or wolf spider (multiple genera). Both wolf and fishing spiders are our largest “fuzzy” spiders in the eastern United States. To separate the two, you must look at eye alignment. In fishing spiders, the front four eyes are arranged with the outer two eyes higher than the inner two. In wolf spiders the four front eyes are in a straight line. I can’t zoom in close enough on the image you included above to see the eyes, but perhaps you can do so with the original image.

Both are harmless to humans, although fishing spiders are more likely to bite than wolf spiders. The bite is akin to a bee sting.

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I tried to get a good zoom on the image on my phone and no go. Thanks for the reply however!

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I’d say a fishing spider, probably Dolomedes tenebrosus, the dark fishing spider

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With that size legspan (if accurate) the only possibility is Dolomedes okefinokensis

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There a HUGE possibility I got the size estimate way overboard!

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You could try posting it on bugguide, I always get good identifications on there.

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