Body to about 16 mm; leg span may reach roughly 75 mm.
Fine-art photographic collection
Eratigena atrica
A house spider capable of half a metre per second — powered by vibrations in a non-sticky funnel web.
About this species
Giant House Spider
Eratigena atrica(C. L. Koch, 1843)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Eratigena atrica is one of the large house spiders of Europe. It builds a sheet web leading into a funnel retreat; the silk is not sticky, so the spider relies on speed and vibration sensing to seize insects that run across it.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Araneae · Agelenidae · Eratigena
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe, with introduced populations elsewhereBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Europe, with introduced populations elsewhere
Buildings, sheds, walls, caves, tree holes and other dry sheltered cavities.
Mostly nocturnal; mature males wander widely in late summer and autumn.
Predatory on insects and other small arthropods.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
Timed runs have measured giant house spiders at around 0.5 metres per second — astonishing speed for an animal only centimetres long.
The web has no glue: footfalls transmit through the sheet and trigger a rapid sprint from the funnel retreat.
Females may live for several years, and newly hatched spiderlings can remain together near the mother’s web for weeks before dispersing.