Well, I'll be darned if I can find any RED spiders! You may have to figure out how to post that picture. Anyway, attached is an image of something just to start the ball rolling.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Well, that's not the spider. Like I said, I can not find a site that has our particular spider. Scary looking thing.

Perhaps an Amaurobiid?

Photo at bugguide
http://bugguide.net/node/view/4648#1022

I'll be happy to take a look at your picture if you email it to me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Amaurobiid spider at Bugguide.net

Oops. Forgot that I removed the check from My Page which says "you can send me an email."

So, I sent *you* an email.

Ick... spiders... Don't know if this will work on spiders but I've found that borax ( yep, the stuff you put in your wash, 20 Mule Team Borax ) will get rid of most bugs around here. I use it two ways. Either I use a funnel to pour a thin line of it outside the doors or I sprinkle on the carpet, let it sit over night then vacuum it up.... ( it deodorizes the carpet too.. lol )

Rita

We have some arachnids in our yard very similar to your description. Their abdomens are about 1/2 inch long, some are red and some are white. I believe mine are a variety of vinegaroon, which are fairly common in the desert Southwest. All vinegaroons that I had seen in the past were much larger than those in my yard, with white abdomens over 1 inch long, so it took a while for me to figure them out.

A vinegaroon looks very much like a scorpion up front, with a thin, long pair of pincers that really look more like a fifth pair of legs instead of pincers. Its abdomen looks like a spider's, oblong with a whip or stinger at the rear.

You can look up "vinegaroon arachnid" using a search engine on the internet to find more information.

Let us know!

Could you possibly have earwigs? I know it's a stretch, but if you're unfamiliar with them, and see their pincers, etc., you might think they're something else.

Oops. Forgot to follow up on Rita's use of borax. I didn't know that borax would work on spiders, but the old way to control insects in the house (before insecticides) was boric acid. Spread a thin trail of boric acid (powder) in likely areas and roaches would crawl through it and carry it back to their breeding places to kill their brood, too. It still works well and is a lot safer than insecticides. Fifty years ago, you could buy boric acid at the pharmacy, sold primarily as an eyewash.

Boric acid is readily available today as an insecticide! The 'old' way is now the 'new' way! Boric acid is the active ingredient in many bait insecticides. I buy it in an aerosol forumulation, too. It's very useful.

We are still waiting for some ideas on that spider! Jean???

Okay. Found the other spider I was thinking about. Perhaps it's a Dysderid, aka the woodlouse spider.

This is another that comes into our office that folks are certain must be nasty. But it's not.

Here's text and a photo at the Univ of Nevada, Lincoln
http://lancaster.unl.edu/enviro/pest/factsheets/spiders.htm

Click on the thumbnail to get a *really* big, full-screen image!

Here is a link that might be useful: Dysderid spider

OMG! With my barely under control arachniphobia, I would be in serious trouble if I came across something that looked like that. I don't CARE how benign it might be. If the original poster EVER gets back to us, you might have the mystery solved.

No, definately not an earwig. Earwigs are prevelant here in Utah. I know what they are. And none of the spider suggestions I have been sent thus far quite match. The closest one is the Wood Louse Hunter, but our spiders "fangs" don't look like pincers, but more like "regular" spider fangs. And the abdomen of our spider is not fuzzy like that, but the color is a very good match to ours. jean001, I will get my camera charged up and send you a photo. If I can figure out how to post it here, I will. Thanks for everyones help! I did not know about the borax. I will have to find out who carries it here.

The woodlouse spider's abodomen is smooth, not fuzzy.

And also count the number of eyes. (Unless your eyes are younger than mine, you'll need a handlens or magnifying lens.) Most spiders have 8 but, as stated at the link, Dysdera has just 6.

I wouldn't bother with the borax for spider control. Borax is quite different from boric acid, which WILL be quite effective.

Nina,

Have you made any progress on the ID of your spider? We're all curious to know what happened next! :>)

I have no idea if what your spider is, but I wanted to comment that if you have spiders(other than the lost ones that occasionally wander in), in your house there is one and only one reason why. Food.

Food usually means insects. If you kill the spiders then the other insects populate faster. With the exception of a few, most spiders are harmless although they freak a lot of people out. Kill them if you wish, but don't be surprised if you get a flush of other insects in your home shortly thereafter. As soon as the poison wears off the other insects will bring in more spiders.

Well it looks like jean001 was right! It definately looks like a woodlouse spider. I am still very afraid of it. I am going to do some more investigating and see how poisonous it is. If I could post a picture here, I would. But, just take a look at her link and you will see what I have in my yard.

i have seen red spiders where i work that ive always compared to being very similar to a wolf spider but red. dont know if its a woodlouse because i never get close enough before i stomp em. then tonight in my new home i saw one on my basement floor & bigger than ive ever seen, prob. 1/2-3/4 inch long, maybe my phobia enlarges them :)
stomped this one too so no pic, are they poisonous? they sure look like they'd be.

We've got spiders like that, too. We took some pictures but havn't gotten them developed yet. The woodlouse spider looks close, but the spiders we have are... sleeker. when we develop the pictures we'll post them and I'll post a link.

Hi,
I'm new to all of this, but I found a red spider in my room not too long ago. I've been searching on the web, and I haven't found anything close to it. I killed it so I have no picture to show. None of the above look like it really. It's medium sized, no fuzziness, completely red, no big divisions in the body that are clearly visible. The closest thing I found was the dwarf spider, but I don't know if that could be it. Some of the red spiders I've found in the internet have a kind of tranparent red if that makes sense, but the one in my room isn't like that. It's solid red. You all are great on suggestions, so I hope someone knows what is could be!

The spider in the original post is called a solifugid. Other common names for this spider include camel spider, wind scorpion, and sun spider.

Here is a link that might be useful: more information about the solifugid spider

I too have the same situation in that two years ago, I found a rather large (2" abdomen) spider in my upstate NY yard while mowing.
He moved rather slow and looked like a strawberry. His abdomen was red with short black hairs that resembled the seeds of a strawberry.
His black legs were proportionate to his body (possibly only slightly shorter) which was also covered in short black hairs. Not hairy, but at variegated intervals.
I do not recall what the face/fangs looked like.

Has anyone an idea of what this spider was or something that may closely resemble it for reference? I greatly appreciate it as my curiosity is finally getting me!
Thank you!

Hi Nina3331, i live in the UK and found a spider that fits your discription, exactly, in Dads garden only last week end, and havent been able to find reference to it anywhere, its not like an earwig or a wood louse its like an ant/spider its odd.
I dont have a phobia of spiders at all i find them fascinating, but when i bent to pick it up, to stop the kids standing on it during play, its fangs curled out from under its head and i took 2 steps back it was scary. unfortunately it looks nothing like the link posted by wendybear 507.

lippy, look up images on the 'wood louse spider'. They are quite common in the UK. It's quite different than what Wendy linked images to.

Does it look like that