Spiders in Iran

What spiders live in Iran?

Iran is not one habitat but half a dozen. Humid Hyrcanian forest lines the Caspian shore, the Alborz and Zagros carry oak woodland and alpine meadow, and between them lie the salt pans and sand seas of the Dasht-e Kavir and the Lut. A list from Gilan and one from Sistan-Baluchestan barely overlap.

Most of what people notice are web-builders. Wheel webs in gardens and orchards belong to orb-weavers: the finely striped banded garden spider and the chalk-white, scalloped lobed argiope in warm open country, and the brown, cross-marked cross orb-weaver in the cooler north. Untidy tangles under stones and in outbuildings are cobweb spiders, a family holding both the true widows and a crowd of harmless mimics.

The hunters are more startling. Wolf spiders pace bare soil at dusk, flattened huntsman spiders press themselves into rock and plaster, and jumping spiders patrol sunlit walls all summer. Iran also holds a celebrity among the velvet spiders: Loureedia phoenixi, a tiny red-and-black burrower described from Iranian soil in 2019 and named, like its relatives, after Lou Reed.

Which spiders in Iran are actually dangerous?

Two groups matter, and both are narrower than their reputation. The first is Latrodectus. The Mediterranean black widow, Latrodectus tredecimguttatus, is glossy black spotted with red or cream and slings a low tangle web under stones, in ground cracks and among steppe grasses. Its desert counterpart is the white widow, Latrodectus pallidus — cream to straw-coloured and almost unmarked, which is exactly why it gets picked up; L. dahli occupies similar ground. A bite gives a faint pinprick, then cramping muscle pain climbing into the abdomen, back and thighs within an hour or two, with sweating, nausea and restlessness. It belongs in a hospital, but with pain relief, supportive care and antivenom where needed it is treated routinely, and deaths are not a feature of modern care.

The second is the Mediterranean recluse, Loxosceles rufescens — small, tan, six-eyed in three pairs, with a faint violin mark behind the eyes. It lives in cellars, storerooms and rock crevices and bites so seldom that confirmed Iranian cases are few; most bites settle as a sore red mark, and only a minority ulcerate. Sand-burying six-eyed relatives are reported from Iranian deserts only rarely, on records too thin to represent a practical risk.

Nothing else here is medically significant. Steatoda paykulliana is a false widow — black with a red or cream band across the front of the abdomen — and though it is routinely killed as a widow, its bite means local pain and a little swelling. The older version of this page called Iran home to some of the world's most dangerous spiders and treated every sicariid bite as a necrotic emergency; neither claim survives scrutiny.

Where you meet them in Iran

In and around the house

Iranian homes hold the usual synanthropic set: cellar spiders hanging upside down in stairwells, Steatoda behind shutters, small jumping spiders on window frames, and flat wall crab spiders that vanish into the plaster the moment a light comes on. None is a threat, and the wall crab spiders are worth leaving alone — they hunt cockroaches. Our guide to house spiders covers this group in detail.

Steppe, desert and stony ground

This is widow country. Sun-baked ground with loose stones, rodent burrows and tussocky grass is what Latrodectus needs, which is why gloves matter when clearing rubble or brush on the central plateau. The same terrain holds burrowing wolf spiders, sitting at the rim of a vertical shaft after dark.

Gardens, orchards and the Caspian forest

Watered ground changes everything. Orchards, qanat-fed gardens and the humid Caspian strip carry the big wheel webs, with Argiope females hanging head-down in open sun and the cross orb-weaver on northern hedges.

Spider season in Iran

Iran has two visible peaks rather than one. The first is late spring: wolf spiders and jumping spiders work warm ground and sunlit walls through April and May, and female wolf spiders carry an egg sac at the spinnerets into June, later ferrying a crust of spiderlings on the back.

The second and larger peak runs from September into October, when female orb-weavers finish growing, their webs get big enough to walk into, and adult male ground hunters wander for mates — which is when large spiders turn up on floors and in bathtubs. The central deserts invert this: summer heat drives almost everything nocturnal, and spring after the rains is richest of all.

Camel spiders, scorpions and names that do not belong here

The animal most often reported as a monstrous Iranian spider is not a spider. Camel spiders — solifuges, order Solifugae — appear to have ten legs (the front pair are sensory pedipalps), carry jaws a third of their length, and run fast enough to look aggressive when they are only chasing your shadow for shade. They have no venom glands at all; a big one can pinch hard enough to break skin, and that is the whole of it. Scorpions are the real arachnid hazard here — Hemiscorpius lepturus in Khuzestan and the thick-tailed Androctonus — a serious medical problem with nothing to do with spiders. Harvestmen, with one oval body and neither silk nor venom, are not spiders either.

Two names on the older list belong to animals that do not live here. Golden silk orb-weavers are tropical spiders of Africa, southern Asia, Australia and the Americas; none is established in Iran, and the big golden-tinged webs blamed on them are the work of ordinary Argiope females. The tarantula wolf spider, Lycosa tarantula, is a western Mediterranean animal — Iran has its own large burrowing Lycosa and Hogna, equally harmless. True tarantulas do occur, small brown Chaetopelma and Ischnocolus in the west and south, and they are not dangerous either.

Common Spiders in Iran

• Velvet Spider (Loureedia phoenixi)
• Wall Crab Spiders (Selenopidae)
• Wolf Spiders
• Crab Spiders

Biggest Spiders in Iran

• Golden Silk Orb Weaver (Trichonephlia clavipes)
• Tarantula Wolf Spider (Lycosa tarantula)

Most Venomous Spiders in Iran

Cobweb Spiders/Tangle Web Spiders (Theridiidae)

Cobweb SpidersMediterranean Black Widow (Latrodectus tredecimguttatus)Identify the Mediterranean black widow (Latrodectus tredecimguttatus): the thirteen spots, its steppe habitat, its web, and how serious the Cobweb SpidersSteatoda paykullianaIdentify Steatoda paykulliana: size, the red crescent and dorsal stripe, its gumfoot web under stones, its Mediterranean range and how painfCobweb 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 bite

Sicariidae

Sicariidae SpidersMediterranean Recluse (Loxosceles rufescens)Identify the Mediterranean recluse (Loxosceles rufescens): six eyes, faint violin mark, its messy retreat web, world range and how dangerous

Less Venomous Spiders in Iran

Orb Weavers

Orb WeaversBanded Garden (Argiope trifasciata)Identify the banded garden spider (Argiope trifasciata): silver banding, size, the zigzag in its web, egg sac, range, and whether its bite iOrb WeaversLobed Argiope (Argiope lobata)Identify the lobed argiope (Argiope lobata): the scalloped silver abdomen, the big orb web, its range from Spain to South Africa, and how haOrb WeaversCross Orb Weaver (Araneus diadematus)Identify the cross orb weaver (Araneus diadematus) by the white cross on its abdomen: size, colour, web, egg sac, range and whether the biteOrb 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 Iran's spiders

Nothing on this page justifies spraying a house. Iranian spiders eat mosquitoes, sandflies, moths and cockroaches, and a corner you clear out refills within a fortnight. Real caution applies to two situations only: bare hands in dark undisturbed ground, and clothing left lying outside.

• Wear gloves for rock piles, rubble and firewood on the dry plateau — that is where widows sit.
• Shake out boots, work gloves and bedding left on the floor overnight.
• Fit door brushes and window screens rather than reaching for insecticide.
• Keep cardboard and sacking off cellar floors, which is where Loxosceles hides.
• Move an indoor spider out with a glass and a piece of card.

For scale, our round-up of the world's most venomous spiders puts the Mediterranean widow in its place, and the page for Israel covers much of the same fauna.