Spiders in Namibia

What spiders live in Namibia?

Namibia is four different countries as far as spiders are concerned. The Namib sand sea runs the length of the coast, gravel plains and the escarpment rise behind it, Kalahari sand fills the east, and real woodland and floodplain occupy the Zambezi Region in the far north-east. No complete national checklist has ever been published, so any precise species total you read online was invented rather than counted.

In gardens, thorn scrub and riverine bush the orb-weavers are the most visible group: the garden orb-web spider Argiope australis hanging head-down in a zigzag-marked web, the banded garden spider in tall grass, and the heavy, lobe-edged lobed argiope at the edge of thicket. Tropical tent-web spiders drape colonial sheets over shrubs, bark spiders of the genus Caerostris press flat against branches, and banded-legged golden orb-web spiders string yellow silk between riverine trees. On the ground, burrowing baboon spiders, wolf spiders and solifuges take over, and in the dune sea a handful of huntsman spiders have become sand specialists found nowhere else on earth.

Which Namibian spiders are actually dangerous?

One group, and it is a small one. The button spiders, Latrodectus, are southern Africa's widows and belong to the cobweb spider family. The black button, Latrodectus indistinctus, is the species that matters: a glossy black female, usually without a red hourglass but often with faint red marks on the upper abdomen, living in a scruffy tangle web low in scrub, under stones and in farm structures across the arid west. Its neurotoxic venom causes latrodectism, a cramping pain that spreads from the bite to the abdomen and back with sweating, restlessness and raised blood pressure. It is treatable, an antivenom is made in South Africa, and deaths are exceptionally rare, but a confirmed bite is a hospital matter.

The brown button, Latrodectus geometricus, is far more common around houses, in garden furniture, meter boxes and stacked timber. It is the milder relative: painful locally, sometimes with sweating and a dull ache, usually settling within a day or two. Violin spiders, the African Loxosceles, are the third name worth knowing. Their bite can leave a slow-healing ulcer, but verified bites are uncommon and most necrotic wounds blamed on them are bacterial infections needing antibiotics.

The six-eyed sand spider and the baboon spiders

The six-eyed sand spider, Hexophthalma, gives Namibia its fearsome online reputation. It is a flat, sand-coloured, crab-legged relative of the violin spiders that buries itself under a few millimetres of loose sand and waits for insects to walk over it. Laboratory work on its venom is genuinely alarming: it contains the same sphingomyelinase D found in recluse venom and destroys tissue in animal experiments. The other half of the story is missing. Verified human bites are so scarce that the medical literature has almost nothing to work with, no antivenom exists, and the spider is slow, shy and permanently buried out in the dunes.

Baboon spiders, the southern African tarantulas of the subfamily Harpactirinae, are the other over-rated group. Namibian species include horned baboon spiders and orange Pterinochilus, all burrow dwellers that sit at the tunnel mouth after dark. A bite is severe to experience, with deep throbbing pain, swelling and occasionally cramping for days, and the fangs are long enough to be a mechanical injury on their own. No baboon spider has ever caused a documented human death and none needs antivenom.

The dune specialists that make Namibia famous

No other country has spiders quite like those living in the Namib sand sea. The golden wheel or cartwheel spider, Carparachne aureoflava, is a small pale huntsman that digs a silk-lined burrow in the slipface of a dune. When a parasitic pompilid wasp finds it, the spider throws itself sideways and cartwheels down the slope, tumbling end over end far faster than it could run. It is one of the few genuinely acrobatic escape behaviours known in arachnids.

Sharing the same dunes is the white lady spider, Leucorchestris arenicola, known locally as the dancing white lady. Females dig a deep burrow closed with a silk trapdoor, and males cross hundreds of metres of open sand at night before navigating precisely back to it. Both are routinely confused in photographs with the six-eyed sand spider, which is flatter, darker and hides by burying rather than digging.

Where you meet them, and when

In and around the house

Indoors you meet the cast from our house spiders guide: cellar spiders, jumping spiders on window frames and huntsman spiders after dark. Brown buttons stay outside, in garden furniture, gate posts and meter boxes.

Farm, lodge and bush

Woodpiles, water tanks, borehole housings and old machinery are classic button-spider habitat, and that is where most regional bites happen, usually when someone moves something bare-handed.

Desert and dunes

A burrow with a low silk collar belongs to a baboon spider or a white lady; a faint disturbed patch of sand may be a buried six-eyed sand spider. Never push a hand into a hole or under a stone in dune country. Namibia's spider year follows the rain: the summer rains from January to April lift insect numbers, webs peak in late summer, and flooded burrows send wandering males onto verandas.

Not spiders: solifuges, whip spiders and scorpions

Many Namibian spider reports are other arachnids. Solifuges, the red romans or jagspinnekoppe of dry country, are fast, hairy, sand-coloured animals with enormous jaws that run toward shade, which usually means toward a person's shadow. They have no venom glands at all, though the jaws can pinch, and tailless whip spiders on rock faces are equally venomless. Scorpions are the real exception to the rule that Namibian arachnids are harmless: thick-tailed Parabuthus species carry genuinely dangerous venom and deserve far more caution than any spider here.

Common Spiders in Namibia

• Common Garden Orb Web Spider also known as Garden Orb Spider and Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope australis)
• Tropical Tent-web Spider (Cyrtophora citricola)
• Bark Spiders (Genus Caerostris)

Biggest Spiders in Namibia

• Southern Baboon Spiders (Harpactirinae)

Most Venomous Spiders in Namibia

Cobweb Spiders/Tangle Web Spiders (Theridiidae)

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

Sicariidae

Sicariidae SpidersSix-eyed Sand (Hexophthalma hahni)Identify the six-eyed sand spider (Hexophthalma hahni): size, six eyes, sand-burying camouflage, southern African range and how dangerous it

Less Venomous Spiders in Namibia

Orb Weavers (Araneidae)

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 ha

Huntsman Spiders (Sparassidae Family)

Orb 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 haHuntsman SpidersCartwheel (Carparachne aureoflava)The cartwheel or golden wheel spider (Carparachne aureoflava): how it rolls down Namib dunes to escape wasps, its deep sand burrow, size, diHuntsman SpidersWhite Lady (Leucorchestris arenicola)Identify the dancing white lady spider (Leucorchestris arenicola): real size, its Namib dune burrow, the leg-drumming signals, navigation an

Living with spiders in Namibia

Spiders around a Namibian house or farm are unpaid fly, mosquito and cockroach control.

• Wear gloves and closed shoes when moving timber, bricks, sacks, feed bags and garden pots, where button spiders shelter.
• Shake out boots, clothing and bedding left on the floor, especially in camps and farm housing.
• Never reach blindly into a burrow, a gap in stonework or under a rock in dune country.
• Brush webs off window frames rather than spraying insecticide indoors.
• Leave bush and garden webs alone; an orb web over a veranda light is catching the insects you are trying to avoid.

For the wider region see our guides to South Africa, where the black button is best documented, and Kenya, and read how spider webs work. On the evidence of actual bites, nothing from the Namib belongs on our most venomous spiders shortlist.