Cellar Spider or Daddy Long-Legs Spider

Natural Habitat

Commonly found in damp, dark, and undisturbed areas such as cellars, basements, crawl spaces, garages, sheds, and sometimes less-used rooms in homes. They also live outdoors under rocks, logs, and in caves.

Diet & Feeding

Mainly feeds on other insects and spiders. They are generalist predators and are known to prey on common house pests.

Behavior Patterns

Cellar spiders are known for building irregular, messy webs in corners. They often hang upside down in their webs. When disturbed, they may vibrate rapidly in their web, making themselves appear blurry to potential predators. They are also known to invade the webs of other spiders, kill the inhabitant, and eat both the spider and its prey.

Risks & Benefits

Cellar spiders are generally harmless to humans. Their fangs are too small to penetrate human skin effectively, and their venom, while effective on insects, is not considered medically significant to people. They are beneficial for pest control as they eat other spiders (including more dangerous ones like black widows in some regions) and various insects.

Identified on: 9/2/2025