Spiders in Egypt

What spiders live in Egypt?

Almost all of Egypt is desert, and almost all Egyptians live on the few per cent of it watered by the Nile. The spider fauna follows the same pattern. The delta, the Nile valley, the Fayoum and the irrigated oases carry a dense Mediterranean and pantropical fauna of orb-weavers, tent-web spiders, cobweb spiders and wall jumpers, thriving on the insects that farming provides. The Eastern and Western Deserts and the Sinai mountains carry a far sparser set of specialists adapted to heat, bare rock and loose sand.

One more habitat matters to visitors: ancient stone. Tombs, temples, ruins and the corridors of the Valley of the Kings provide exactly the cool, dark, undisturbed crevices that spiders favour.

Which Egyptian spiders are dangerous?

The widows come first. Egypt has several Latrodectus species: the Mediterranean black widow, L. tredecimguttatus, stout and black with red or orange dorsal spots, in field margins and rough ground; the pale white widow, L. pallidus, of dry scrub and desert edge; and the introduced brown widow, now common around buildings and garden furniture. The southern black widow shown on many Egyptian lists is a New World species and does not occur here, though it is a close relative with similar habits.

An important correction: widow venom is neurotoxic, not flesh-destroying. Older versions of this page claimed cobweb spider bites cause necrosis, which confuses two different mechanisms. Latrodectism produces cramping muscle pain spreading from the bite to the abdomen and back over one to two hours, with sweating and nausea. It is painful, treatable and very rarely fatal.

The necrosis risk belongs to the other family. The Mediterranean recluse, Loxosceles rufescens, is native across the Mediterranean basin and lives in buildings, stores and ruins. Most bites stay minor; a minority develop the slowly enlarging, ulcerating lesion typical of recluses, which needs medical assessment rather than home treatment.

Six-eyed sand spiders of the desert

Egypt's sand seas hold the third medically interesting group, the six-eyed sand spiders of the family Sicariidae — flat, crab-legged relatives of the recluses long placed in the genus Sicarius, with the African species now assigned to Hexophthalma. They bury themselves in loose sand under a coating of grains stuck to the body hairs and ambush whatever walks over them.

Their venom contains the same sphingomyelinase D as recluse venom and is potent in the laboratory, which is why the group has such a reputation. In practice the reputation outruns the record: they live where almost nobody walks, are extraordinarily reluctant to bite, and confirmed human bites are vanishingly rare. The better known six-eyed sand spider of southern Africa is the same story. Treat them as a reason to shake out a sleeping bag, not to avoid the desert.

Where you actually meet them

Houses, hotels and ancient stone

Indoors you get cellar spiders on ceilings, the red house spider and the triangulate cobweb spider behind furniture, and jumping spiders patrolling sunlit plaster: Adanson's house jumper, the pantropical jumping spider and Menemerus semilimbatus, the flat grey wall jumper of Mediterranean buildings. All are harmless; our guide to house spiders covers the indoor group. Tombs and temple corridors hold the same species plus recluses in the deepest crevices.

Gardens, fields and reed beds

Irrigated land is where the big showy webs are. Lobed argiope and banded garden spiders hang head-down in wheel webs with zig-zag silk bands among reeds and crops, and tent-web spiders, Cyrtophora citricola, drape horizontal sheets over citrus and hedges, often in colonies.

Desert and Sinai

Out in the sand and rock you find sand spiders, burrowing wolf spiders, crab spiders on desert flowers and the Middle East black tarantula, Chaetopelma olivaceum — Egypt's largest spider, a silk-lined crevice dweller with no medically significant venom.

When spiders are most active in Egypt

Egypt has no real winter shutdown, so spiders are present all year, but their visibility shifts. Spring, roughly March to May, brings the fastest growth and the first large webs; autumn, September to November, is when garden argiopes and tent-web colonies peak. High summer pushes almost everything into the night and into shade, so a daytime walk in July sees far fewer spiders than an evening one.

The khamsin winds of spring and the rare desert downpours change behaviour for a few days: blown sand and flash flooding drive ground spiders out of burrows and into buildings, tents and stored equipment. That is the moment to check boots and bedding.

Camel spiders and other things that are not spiders

The camel spider is the biggest misunderstanding in Egyptian arachnology. Despite the name it is not a spider: camel spiders belong to the order Solifugae, a separate group of arachnids with a segmented abdomen, ten apparent legs — the front pair are sensory pedipalps — and enormous scissor-like chelicerae. They have no venom glands and no venom and cannot inject anything. They are fast, and they chase shade rather than people, which is why they seem to charge; a large one can pinch hard enough to break skin, but the stories about anaesthetic venom, flesh-eating wounds and camel-stomach burrowing are folklore.

Two other arachnids get reported as spiders. Harvestmen have a single oval body, no waist and no silk. Scorpions genuinely are dangerous here — Leiurus and Androctonus cause serious envenomation and are treated with dedicated antivenom — but they are not spiders, and confusing the two makes people fear the wrong animal.

Common Spiders in Egypt

• Common Red House Spiders
• Banded Garden Spider (Argiope trifasciata)
• Adanson’s House Jumper (Hasarius adansoni)
• Tropical Tent-web Spider (Cyrtophora citricola)
• Lobed Argiope (Argiope lobata)
• Camel Spiders (Solifugae)
• Crab Spiders (Thomisidae)

Biggest Spiders in Egypt

• Middle East Black Tarantula also called Middle East Gold
• Black Tarantula, and Black Furry (Chaetopelma olivaceum)

Less Venomous Spiders

• Black tarantula - Chaetopelma olivaceum
• Half-edged Wall Jumping Spider - Menemerus semilimbatus
• Pantropical Jumping Spider - Plexippus paykulli

Most Venomous Spiders in Egypt

Cobweb Spiders/Tangle Web Spiders (Theridiidae)

Cobweb SpidersTriangulate Cobweb (Steatoda triangulosa)Identify the triangulate cobweb spider (Steatoda triangulosa): the purple zigzag pattern, yellow legs, its tangle web, and whether the bite Cobweb SpidersWhite Widow (Latrodectus pallidus)Identify the white widow (Latrodectus pallidus): pale cream body, no hourglass, its desert range from North Africa to Asia, and how its biteCobweb SpidersSouthern Black Widow (Latrodectus mactans)Identify the southern black widow (Latrodectus mactans): the red hourglass, its tangled web, where it lives, and what a bite really does to Cobweb SpidersBrown Widow (Latrodectus geometricus)Identify the brown widow (Latrodectus geometricus) by its orange hourglass and spiky egg sac, and learn how its bite compares with a black w

Living with spiders in Egypt

The practical risk in Egypt is low and concentrated in three situations: reaching blind into stored material, sleeping on desert ground, and clearing old stone by hand.

• Shake out shoes, clothing, towels and sleeping bags, especially on desert trips and in long-closed rooms.
• Wear gloves for rubble, woodpiles, stored crates and garden furniture.
• Check the underside of chairs, planter rims and meter boxes before putting a hand there.
• Keep beds away from walls and store clothing in sealed bags where recluses are a concern.
• Sweep webs and egg sacs off outdoor furniture rather than spraying; removing egg sacs is what reduces numbers.
• Use a torch after dark, which matters far more for scorpions than for spiders.

The same fauna runs along the southern Mediterranean and into the Levant, so the lists for Israel and Tunisia overlap closely with this one, and the cobweb spider family page covers the widow group in more depth.