''Tegenaria parietina'' is a rather rare spider in Europe, with a distribution also including Northern Africa to

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, and from the West Indies to

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

and

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, where it may have been introduced. In the UK it is sometimes known as the cardinal spider because of the legend that

Cardinal Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figur ...

was terrified by this species at

Hampton Court Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief ...

, or, conversely, because he regarded them as lucky and forbade anyone to harm them. In 2013, ''Tegenaria taprobanica'' was included in this species.

Appearance

Females have a body length up to 20 mm, males up to 17 mm. Their legs are approximately three times longer. They are reddish brown, but young spiders may be much paler up to the last moult. Up close, they are easily differentiated from ''T. domestica'' by the lengths of their legs: the front pair is almost as long as species in the genus ''

Eratigena ''Eratigena'' is a genus of spider in the family Agelenidae. Most of its species were moved from the genus ''Tegenaria'' in 2013. Which is what this genus is named after, being an anagram of ''Tegenaria''. Two species that frequently build webs ...

'', while the hind pair is unshortened and similar to ''T. domestica''. They also have more abundant hair on their tibias. Females can live for up to eight years, while males die shortly after mating. These spiders live mostly in buildings or walls. They look rather similar to '' T. ferruginea''. CAPOAT9F

Taxonomy

The species was first described by Antoine François de Fourcroy in 1785, as ''Aranea parietina''. He called it "the brown domestic spider" that lived in the corners of rooms. "L'Araignée brune domestique .. Habitat angulos murorum". It was given its current generic placement by

Eugène Simon Eugène Louis Simon (; 30 April 1848 – 17 November 1924) was a French naturalist who worked particularly on insects and spiders, but also on birds and plants. He is by far the most prolific spider taxonomist in history, describing over 4, ...

in 1875. It has been misidentified by several authors as ''

Tegenaria domestica The spider species ''Tegenaria domestica'', commonly known as the barn funnel weaver in North America and the domestic house spider in Europe, is a member of the funnel-web family Agelenidae. Distribution and habitat Domestic house spiders ran ...

''. ''Tegenaria taprobanica'' was included in ''T. parietina'' by Bolzern et al. (2013), who considered that the very short original description of ''T. taprobanica'' would fit a very large specimen of ''T. parietina''. p. 125. The inclusion is recognized by the

World Spider Catalog The World Spider Catalog (WSC) is an online searchable database concerned with spider taxonomy. It aims to list all accepted families, genera and species, as well as provide access to the related taxonomic literature. The WSC began as a series of ...

. Earlier sources treat ''T. taprobanica'' as a separate species.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1302240 parietina Agelenidae Spiders of Africa Spiders of Asia Spiders of South America Spiders described in 1785