Please help identify spider found indoors - encountered THREE so far this week!

[lifetrip]

Hi. I live in southeast Texas. Earlier this week I awoke to one of these types of spiders walking on my pillow towards my face. ...my first instinct was to use my hand and brush him away...then I couldn't find him. The next day I saw what looked like the same spider in my kitchen on the underside of my cupboard cabinet with his legs exposed. It crossed my mind that 'maybe' it was the same spider I had seen the day before. Okay, so I get him out of the house....then find ANOTHER ONE...also hiding around my kitchen cabinets...so that means there is definitely more than one. The last one is the one in the picture floating in water. I don't like killing anything, but these are very creepy looking. When they are still, they look oblong with longer legs in front. Need to find out what type of spider they are...to make sure they are not recluses...find out if they are poisonous. I'm also afraid I'm going to see more since this one makes 3 now. Please help - Thanks!

[Mandy]

Welcome to the forum, Lifetrip!

Your spider looks like one of the "ghost spiders" in the family Anyphaenidae. Within that family, my first guess would be something in the genus Hibana, but I really can't tell for sure using these images (that sometimes takes a microscope, anyways). There are a few other genera of ghost spider to choose from.

It's definitely not anything considered dangerously venomous to people. It's an adult male, too, and males will wander further than normal when they are looking for a mate. You might start by checking around the house for crevices that are leading indoors, as that's typically how this kind of spider gets inside. They do not "infest" or anything, so it's just some solitary males that you're finding. With the except of perhaps the brown recluse, no spider in North America infests homes or sprouts massive populations or anything. (Being solitary predators, spiders would kill and eat each other before a population could get big enough.)

Hope this helps! The mating season will die down eventually and you'll stop seeing them as often. Oh, and if you pull the bed away from the wall by a few inches and kind of keep the blankets from touching the ground, it significantly decreases the chances of a spider crawling on the bed (though it is extremely rare to begin with).

[lifetrip]

Thanks so much Mandy for the fast reply! They do look like ghost spiders!
I'm on the 2nd floor and there is a large berry tree....currently in full ripe berry mode.... close to the windows and I've had the windows open lately while spring cleaning. They have screens but I can now see where the screens are not tight fitting enough. And...my bed is right next to the windows. At first I thought they were coming from the storage area / garage below me on the 1st floor, but after reading about ghost spiders, it makes more sense they are coming in from the berry tree at the windows.
And thank you for telling me it's not an infestation....that Really gave me peace of mind.

[Mandy]

Glad we could help! Sounds like you've probably located one of their main entry points. Tough to get screens to fit snuggly even when they're cut to the perfect size. I still have spiders coming in all the time at my house, even when the window is closed... they somehow find their way in from the outside and emerge from inside the window track. Sneaky little things!