Instructions
Look in the garden. You can occasionally find the crab spider on flower petals. These creatures don't spin webs but lurk on flowers, where they capture their prey. They can also be found on tree barks and fruits. They change color depending on where they sit.
Determine if the spider spins a web. You can find a variety of orb weaver spiders in Ohio. They include the golden orb weaver, the humped orb weaver and the garden orb weaver. They all live on their sticky, wheel-shaped webs, which they spin between trees and shrubbery where insects tend to fly.
Search for the smallest spider in Ohio, which spins an unusual web. The sheet weaver spider grows only to a quarter-inch in size. It creates webs in the shape of a cone in several layers to be able to trap its prey quickly. For the larger insects it catches, the sheet weaver will quickly spin more of its web around the insect to keep it trussed up for later feeding.
Watch for ground spiders. In Ohio, they live in forest and woodland areas, and travel at night to hunt their prey. They are best recognized by their barrel-shaped spinnerets and by the fact that two of their middle eyes are narrow rather than round. They are black, gray and pinkish-brown.
Look out for jumping and wolf spiders. They both live in forests and shrubbery--as well as in deserts and mountain areas elsewhere in the United States. The wolf spider has eight eyes in three different rows, while the jumping spider has two sets of eyes (two large and two small). They both have great vision. The wolf spider is unusual in that the female will carry her egg sac on the bottom of her abdomen until the baby spiders are born. The species is brown and tan with orange markings. Jumping spiders are mostly dark and light brown.
How to Identify Spiders in Ohio
Most people tend to be afraid of spiders, but for the most part, spiders in Ohio are harmless and will only bite if they feel threatened. Some spiders in the state are rather colorful and can be quite fascinating to watch. However, there are others that can be rather dangerous, such as those that hunt for their prey, since they tend to be a bit more aggressive than most. For information on identifying the most common spiders in the state of Ohio, read the steps below.