Spiders in Italy

What spiders live in Italy?

Italy runs from Alpine glaciers to the Sicilian coast, and its spider fauna is correspondingly huge — more than 1,600 species on the national checklist, one of the richest lists in Europe. An Alpine valley and a Sardinian garrigue share almost nothing, so where you are matters more than the country you are in.

Most of what people photograph is a web-builder. Wheel webs across garden gates and vineyard rows belong to orb-weavers: the brown, white-marked cross orb-weaver in the north, the unmistakable yellow-and-black wasp spider with its zigzag silk ribbon from July, and the tropical tent-web spider spinning dense communal sheets on citrus and prickly pear in the far south. Untidy tangles in cellars and stone walls are cobweb spiders — mostly Steatoda, including the triangulate combfoot behind furniture.

The hunters are what startle people. The radiated wolf spider is Italy's bulkiest common wolf spider, the Mediterranean spiny false wolf spider walks into houses every autumn, the little zebra jumping spider patrols sunlit walls, and the goldenrod crab spider waits inside flowers for bees.

Which spiders in Italy are actually dangerous?

One species. The Mediterranean black widow, Latrodectus tredecimguttatus, known in Italy as the malmignatta, is a velvety black widow marked with up to thirteen red or orange spots. It builds a low, scruffy tangle web under stones, in grass tussocks and at the base of dry-stone walls in Sardinia, Sicily, Puglia, Calabria and the Tuscan Maremma, so bites happen to people clearing rubble or working brush by hand, not to tourists on beaches. The syndrome is a faint pinprick followed within an hour or two by cramping muscle pain spreading to the abdomen, back and thighs, with sweating, nausea and restlessness. Italian hospitals treat it routinely with pain relief, supportive care and, in severe cases, antivenom.

The second name, the ragno violino, is the Mediterranean recluse, Loxosceles rufescens — small, tan, six-eyed in three pairs, with a darker violin mark behind the eyes. It is genuinely common in Italian cellars, attics and storerooms, and it genuinely bites very rarely; most bites heal as a sore red mark and only a minority ulcerate. The periodic headlines about amputations and deaths from a ragno violino do not survive investigation, and the necrotic wounds blamed on it are far more often bacterial infections.

The third name on the old list does not belong. The yellow sac spider — in Italy Cheiracanthium punctorium and C. mildei — delivers a sharp, wasp-like sting that hurts for a day or two and then stops. It causes no rotting wounds, and it is not a sicariid: the older page filed it in the same family as the recluse, which is simply an error. The cucumber green spider was also listed among Italy's most venomous species; it is a harmless orb-weaver the size of a pea. False black widows are named after widows but their venom is far weaker.

Where you meet them in Italy

Houses, cellars and garages

Three groups move indoors. Cellar spiders hang upside down in bathrooms and stairwells, the long-bodied cellar spider in the north and the marbled cellar spider further south. Steatoda take garage corners and shutter boxes. And every September the Mediterranean spiny false wolf spider crosses living-room floors — flat, hairy, fast, reported constantly as something lethal, and completely harmless. Our guide to house spiders covers this set.

Dry-stone walls, garrigue and olive groves

This is malmignatta country in the south: sun-baked ground with loose stones, tussocky grass and old field walls is exactly what the widow needs, which is why gloves matter for anyone shifting rocks in Puglia or Sardinia. The same terrain holds the burrowing tarantula wolf spider, Lycosa tarantula, sitting at the mouth of a vertical shaft after dark.

Meadows, vineyards and wetlands

From midsummer the wasp spider hangs head-down in a wheel web slung between grass stems. Crab spiders ambush bees inside flowers, and in Alpine and pre-Alpine bogs the raft spider Dolomedes fimbriatus hunts from the edge of pools and can run across the surface film.

Spider season in Italy

Spring belongs to the hunters. Wolf spiders and jumping spiders become obvious on warm rock and sunny walls from March and April, and female wolf spiders carry an egg sac at the spinnerets through May and June before ferrying a crust of spiderlings on the back.

The peak is late August to October. Female orb-weavers reach full size and their webs grow big enough to walk into, and adult male ground hunters roam for mates — which is precisely why calls about large spiders in Italian houses cluster in September. Winter shuts this down across the north and the Apennines, while Sicily, Sardinia and the southern coasts keep a quiet trickle of activity going under bark, in wall cavities and in leaf litter all year.

Look-alikes, folklore and names that get muddled

The mistake that matters is Steatoda for a widow. False widows are glossy and globular like the real thing but brown to purplish-black, with a pale crescent across the front of the abdomen instead of red spots on top. If there is no red, it is almost certainly not a malmignatta.

The most famous muddle in Italian arachnology is tarantism itself. The frenzied dance of the tarantella, centred on Taranto, was blamed on the bite of the big burrowing wolf spider Lycosa tarantula, which is how the word "tarantula" entered the language. That spider's bite is a painful nip and nothing more; the symptoms described in the old accounts fit the malmignatta far better, and the wolf spider's reputation is borrowed.

Two more corrections are worth making. The fen raft spider, Dolomedes plantarius, is regularly listed as a common Italian species; it is a rare northern-European fen specialist, and Italy's raft spider is Dolomedes fimbriatus. And harvestmen, with a single oval body, no silk and no venom glands, are not spiders at all.

Common Spiders in Italy

• Tarantula Wolf Spiders
• Trapdoor Spider
• Wasp Spider
• Cross Orbweaver (Araneus diadematus)
• Long-bodied Cellar Spider (Pholcus phalangioides)
• Pink Crab Spiders (Thomisus onustus)
• Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi)
• Cricket-bat Orbweaver (Mangora acalypha)
• Tropical Tent-web Spider (Cyrtophora citricola)
• Lobed Argiope (Argiope lobata)
• Marbled Cellar Spider (Holocnemus pluchei)
• Triangle Crab Spider (Ebrechtella tricuspidate)
• Fen Raft Spider (Dolomedes plantarius)
• Triangulate Combfoot (Steatoda triangulosa)

Biggest Spiders in Italy

• Radiated Wolf Spider (Hogna radiata)
• Mediterranean Spiny False Wolf Spider (Zoropsis spinimana)
• Silver-sided Sector Spider (Zygiella x-notata)

Most Venomous Spiders in Italy

Sac Spiders

Sac SpidersBlack-Footed Yellow Sac (Cheiracanthium inclusum)Identify the black-footed yellow sac spider (Cheiracanthium inclusum): size, colour, its silk retreat, where it lives, and what its bite rea

Sicariidae

Sac SpidersBlack-Footed Yellow Sac (Cheiracanthium inclusum)Identify the black-footed yellow sac spider (Cheiracanthium inclusum): size, colour, its silk retreat, where it lives, and what its bite reaSicariidae SpidersMediterranean Recluse (Loxosceles rufescens)Identify the Mediterranean recluse (Loxosceles rufescens): six eyes, faint violin mark, its messy retreat web, world range and how dangerous

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 SpidersFalse Black Widow (Steatoda grossa)Identify the false black widow (Steatoda grossa): size, colour, its gumfoot cobweb, how it differs from a true widow, and how bad the bite r

Less Venomous Spiders in Italy

Jumping Spiders

Jumping SpidersZebra (Salticus scenicus)Identify the zebra spider (Salticus scenicus): the black and white bars, the male's oversized jaws, how it hunts without a web, and whether

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

Living with Italy's spiders

Fumigating an Italian house for spiders solves nothing a screen door and a tidy cellar would not. These animals eat mosquitoes, sandflies, moths and flies, and an emptied corner refills within a fortnight.

• Wear gloves for dry-stone walls, rock piles and firewood in the south — that is where the malmignatta sits.
• Shake out boots, gardening gloves and folded deckchairs left outside overnight.
• Keep cardboard and sacking off cellar floors, which is where the ragno violino hides.
• Fit door brushes and window screens rather than reaching for insecticide; autumn wanderers come in under doors.
• Move an indoor spider outside with a glass and a sheet of card.

Our round-up of the world's most venomous spiders puts the malmignatta in proper context, and the fauna of Croatia across the Adriatic is close to a mirror image of Italy's own.