u/knerdy

- Pics 1 & 2 are the spiders I’m looking to identify.
- Pics 3 & 4 of are what looked like egg sacs nearby the spiders in the first pics.
- Pics 4 & 5 are of the female brown widow I found earlier in the day.

A few days ago I noticed at least four or five spiders, all fairly close together, that had built some messy looking webs in the nooks of our patio cover ceiling. Based on their location, along with the appearance of their web and body, I figured they were cellar spiders and let them be. They all looked like the spider shown in pics 1 & 2.

Yesterday, I found a female brown widow under one of our patio tables (see pics 4 & 5). The table she was on is only a few feet from where our door with all the “cellar spiders” is. I was able to safely remove the female, but now I’m wondering if the spiders by our door (pics 1 & 2) are actually male brown widows and not cellar spiders.

They have a much smaller body than the female I found, but longer legs. I haven’t been able to see the underside of their abdomen to look for any hourglass, but they do have some markings on the back.

Regarding the possible “egg sacs.” There were a handful of them scattered throughout the nooks of our patio cover ceiling, though most were nearby the webs. When I touched the “sacs” with a stick, most flattened immediately and were pretty flaky, so I just scraped them off into a ziploc bag. None of them looked clearly like the spiky egg sac style I’m seeing online for brown widows.

Since the unknown spiders are so close to our door, we are getting rid of all the spiders along with the webs/suspected egg sacs to be safe. But I wanted to seek this subreddits opinion so I know how to better identify them moving forward.

Thanks!