Spiders in Haiti

What spiders live in Haiti?

Haiti occupies the western third of Hispaniola and is far more varied than its reputation suggests: a hot, dry Gonâve coast, irrigated plain around Port-au-Prince, and cloud-wrapped pine and broadleaf forest above 2,000 metres in the Massif de la Selle. Hispaniola is old enough and big enough to have evolved spiders found nowhere else, and the island list runs to several hundred species — nearly all small, nearly all harmless.

What you notice belongs to a handful of groups. Orb-weavers dominate outdoors: Berland's trashline orb weaver, a tiny Cyclosa that lines its web with a column of prey husks and sits in the middle pretending to be one of them, and the far larger golden silk orb-weaver, whose yellow-tinged web spans gaps between trees.

Indoors the fauna is the standard tropical set: the common house spider and its relatives among the cobweb spiders in ceiling corners, jumping spiders on sunlit plaster, and a flat, straw-brown huntsman on the wall after dark. On flowers, ambush hunters from the crab spider family sit with their front legs open, waiting for bees.

One thing shapes Haitian spiders more than climate: the loss of forest. Centuries of clearing have left very little closed canopy, so most of the country's spiders now live in farmland, hedge, garden and town. The forest specialists survive in upland fragments such as La Visite and Macaya, which matter out of all proportion to their size.

Which spiders in Haiti are actually dangerous?

One genus. Widow spiders of the genus Latrodectus are the only Haitian spiders whose venom is of real medical importance. Both the black widow group and the introduced brown widow, Latrodectus geometricus, occur on Hispaniola, and the brown widow is now the one most often found around buildings. It varies from cream to near-black, so colour is no help; the giveaway is the egg sac, a pale ball covered in short silk spikes.

A widow bite may register as no more than a pinprick, then over the following hours produce latrodectism: cramp that spreads outward into the trunk and thighs, along with clammy skin and a churning stomach. That picture is worth a hospital assessment, though deaths are very rare and most cases settle with pain relief.

Two things this page corrects. No recluse spider holds a population in Haiti, so a sore that refuses to close on this island is far more often bacterial than arachnid; calling it "necrotic arachnidism" only delays the antibiotics and wound care that work. And the old line that Haiti holds "some of the deadliest spiders" is simply untrue: nothing on the island has ever been a reliable cause of death.

Where you actually meet them

In and around the house

Cobweb spiders take ceiling corners and the space behind furniture; jumping spiders work sunlit walls; huntsmen hunt cockroaches at night and vanish behind a picture by morning. Widows stay on the margins — latrine surrounds, cinder-block stacks, utility boxes, the underside of a chair left outside for a season.

Gardens, hedges and farmland

This is where most Haitian spiders now live: fresh orb webs across cactus fencing and coffee shade every evening, crab spiders on flower heads, ground hunters in the litter under mango and breadfruit.

Upland forest and ravines

The pine and broadleaf forest of the Massif de la Selle and Massif de la Hotte holds the island's endemic species, including forest-floor hunters and tarantulas that burrow under rocks and roots. Big golden webs are most obvious across ravine gaps with enough canopy to anchor them.

Spider season and the Haitian rains

Haiti runs on two wet spells rather than four seasons: rain from about April to June, a drier midsummer, then a second and heavier rainy period from August into November. Insects follow the water and spiders follow the insects, so webs are biggest late in the second rains, roughly September to November, when females hatched earlier in the year reach adult size.

Hurricane season overlaps that peak. One bad storm clears the silk off an entire slope and the countryside reads as nearly spider-free for a fortnight, then spiderlings ride out on silk threads in the warm air and the gaps fill again. Indoor species never pause: a Haitian house does not get cold enough to interrupt them.

Big and frightening, but harmless — and what the old lists get wrong

The Hispaniolan brown tarantula, Phormictopus cancerides, is the largest spider on the island and the one most often killed on sight — a heavy, dark, burrow-dwelling animal with impressive fangs and venom that does nothing serious to a person. A cornered individual rears up and flicks urticating hairs from its abdomen; those hairs, not the bite, are the genuine nuisance.

Then there is the spider that crosses a bedroom ceiling at midnight: Heteropoda venatoria, the pantropical huntsman, pale, thin as card and startlingly quick. Nothing about it is medically significant, and it earns its keep on cockroaches. Several island lists add the giant crab spider Olios giganteus to Haiti, but that species belongs to the deserts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico; Hispaniola has its own Olios, and the big flat spider on your wall is almost always the huntsman.

One more correction. The goldenrod crab spider, Misumena vatia, belongs to cool northern meadows in North America and Europe, not to the Caribbean. Haiti's flower ambushers are tropical crab spiders in related genera: same hunting method, less dramatic colour change, equally harmless.

Common Spiders in Haiti

• Berland’s Trashline Orb Weaver (Cyclosa berlandi)
• Common House Spider (Parasteatoda tepidariorum)

Biggest Spiders in Haiti

• Giant Crab Spider (Olios giganteus)
• Pantropical Huntsman Spider (Heteropoda venatoria)
• Golden Silk Orb Weaver (Trichonephila clavipes)

Most Venomous Spiders in Haiti

Cobweb Spiders/Tangle Web Spiders (Theridiidae)

Cobweb SpidersWidow (Latrodectus)A guide to the widow spiders (Latrodectus): how to identify the genus, the species you may meet, the gumfoot web, and how serious a widow biCobweb 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

Less Venomous Spiders in Haiti

Crab Spiders (Thomisidae)

Crab SpidersGoldenrod Crab (Misumena vatia)Identify the goldenrod crab spider (Misumena vatia): size, the red abdominal streaks, how the female changes colour, where it lives and whet

Orb Weavers

Orb WeaversGolden Silk Orb-Weaver (Nephila)Golden silk orb-weavers (Nephila): huge females, tiny males, giant golden webs, where they live, what they eat and whether their bite is dan

Living with spiders in Haiti

In a country where mosquito-borne disease is a real concern, the spiders around a house are working for you. Managing the one genus that matters is a matter of habit, not chemicals — a spray can seldom reaches the crevices widows choose.

• Gloves on before you shift cinder blocks, roofing sheets or stacked wood, and tip each piece away from your legs.
• Look under outdoor furniture, utility boxes and plant pots before you grip them.
• Knock out boots and gloves before use, and keep clothing in sealed boxes rather than open cardboard.
• Brush webs and spiky egg sacs out of latrine surrounds, window frames and porches.
• Keep the strip around the house clear of rubble, which is prime widow habitat.
• Leave garden orb-weavers alone; one adult female removes thousands of insects in a season.

Cross into the Dominican Republic and the same fauna continues; it repeats, with different endemics, in Cuba and Jamaica. For the engineering behind those overnight wheels, see our guide to spider webs.