Raleigh, Durham and the surrounding areas of the Triangle have many, many species of spiders. It can be very difficult for a non-expert to have any idea what to think of some of these scary-looking, but mostly harmless eight-legged creatures. 

The North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation’s clear diagram that lays out many of the most common spiders you’re likely to see in the state goes a long way in educating citizens though. After walking you through the diagram, you’ll have a much better idea of when to be concerned and when not to be when confronted with a spider. 

Web-building spiders

As an easy way to break the state’s spiders into two big categories, N.C. Parks had one slide showing web-building spiders and another showing non-web-building spiders. To take the first slide first, one should note that there is only one spider on this list with medically significant venom. 

That spider, the black widow, builds its irregularly shaped webs in hidden places. Be aware when cleaning out old boxes in an attic or garage that this is a likely place to encounter black widows. The spider has a red hourglass shape on the underside of their belly. Another spider on the list, the false black widow, appears very similar, except it doesn’t have this hourglass. Looking at both from the top, though, one wouldn’t be able to tell the difference easily. Black widow bites are very rarely deadly, but can be painful and require medical care. An image of the spider can be seen below. 

But moving beyond the single dangerous spider, there are many other web-building spiders to be aware of. The largest group is called the orb weavers. These spiders, many of which can be found in gardens, are called orb weavers because of their round webs. None of them are dangerous, and on the chart, they are distinguished from each other by how round they are and their coloring, many of them being yellow. 

Two interesting species on the chart are the funnel-web spider and the harvestman. The first is alone in not creating irregularly shaped “cobwebs” or round-shaped orb webs, but instead make, as their name suggests, funnel-shaped webs. The other — the harvestman — actually isn’t even a spider and doesn’t weave webs since it doesn’t have silk glands (so not sure how it made the web-weaving spider list). Harvestman, also called the daddy longlegs, is an arachnid, but has a few differences in body segmenting, eyes, venom and silk that make it more similar to a scorpion than a spider. Don’t worry, though; unlike the scorpion, it won’t sting you.