A barn funnel weaver on a white ceiling seen from above, brown with two dark stripes on the front body segment and a mottled abdomen, its legs spread wide

Spider Season in Alaska: What Lives Here and When It Comes Indoors

Q: Why are there so many spiders in my house in Alaska right now?

Alaska's indoor spiders are house spiders, funnel weavers and orbweavers, and the mature males wander in late August and September before the first hard frost ends the season. There is no widow or recluse season to speak of, because neither has an established record here.

Q: Are there joro spiders in Alaska?

No verified joro spider record exists in Alaska yet. The species has spread outward from north Georgia since 2014 and first records keep appearing in new states, so the year by year series on the national page is the thing to watch. A large yellow and black spider on a web here is almost always a yellow garden spider, which is native and of no medical concern.

Q: What spiders come indoors in Alaska in the fall?

House spiders in ceiling corners, funnel weavers in basements and window wells, the pale northern yellow sac spider walking the ceiling at night, and the occasional orbweaver that built its web across a door. All of them are of no medical concern. Vacuuming webs, sealing door sweeps and moving the woodpile off the wall reduce the traffic more than any spray does.

Q: What should I do if I am bitten by a spider?

Wash the bite with soap and water and call Poison Control on 1-800-222-1222, which is free and staffed around the clock. Go to a hospital for muscle cramping, sweating, spreading pain, or a wound that keeps getting worse over a day or two. Treatment depends on the symptoms and never on naming the spider, and most marks blamed on spiders have another cause.

Alaska has no widow or recluse spider at the record threshold. The spiders that turn up indoors in autumn, what they look like, and who to call about a bite.

No widow or recluse at the record threshold in Alaska

Widow and recluse species

Joro spider

No record

Indoor season

Late summer to first frost

Spiders in Alaska, by the numbers

Verified records, snapshot 2026-09-19 no record

widow and recluse species

none at the record threshold

joro records

none verified yet

Aug to frost

peak indoor season

house spiders and funnel weavers

widow and recluse records

iNaturalist snapshot

Alaska has a single western black widow record in the entire verified set, a stray, against thousands of records of harmless spiders from Ketchikan to Fairbanks. Every spider an Alaskan meets indoors in September is a house spider, a funnel weaver or an orbweaver.

Which spiders

The spiders that live in Alaska

No widow or recluse species reaches 20 verified records in Alaska: the whole widow record is 1 stray, and the brown recluse has none.

The spiders Alaska does have indoors are house spiders in ceiling corners, funnel weavers in basements and window wells. All of them are of no medical concern. Sealing door sweeps, vacuuming webs and moving the woodpile off the wall reduce the autumn traffic more than any spray does.

The five states with no widow or recluse at the record threshold: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota and Alaska. In each, the widow record is a handful of strays and the brown recluse has one or two records at most.

The season

When spiders come indoors in Alaska

Indoor spiders in Alaska are house spiders, funnel weavers and orbweavers, and the mature males wander in late August and September before the first hard frost ends the season.

A large dark funnel weaver spider standing in the white basin of a bathtub, long legs spread on the enamel — A funnel weaver in a bathtub, the classic September find. Smooth enamel is the one surface a wandering male cannot climb back out of, which is why the tub and the sink collect them. “Spinne-Tegenaria-domestica 01” by Traumrune, CC BY-SA 3.0

Identification

The spiders people photograph as widows and recluses

None of the species people fear lives in Alaska at any real density, and that is the point of knowing the lookalikes: the glossy dark spider in a low web here is a false widow or a common house spider, and the brown one in the basement is a funnel weaver or a cellar spider.

A widow is glossy, round bodied, and hangs upside down in a low tangle web with a red or orange hourglass underneath. A recluse is plain tan with six eyes in three pairs, a darker violin on the front segment, and legs with no bands and no spines. A violin shaped mark on its own is not a recluse: many harmless brown spiders carry one, and it is faint on many real recluses. A bite is never an identification. Skin reactions have dozens of causes, and Poison Control on 1-800-222-1222 will ask about symptoms, never for a species name.

Mistaken for a black widow

False widow

Steatoda grossa

Purplish brown rather than glossy black, with pale markings on top of the abdomen and nothing underneath. The same tangle web in the same corners, which is why it is photographed as a widow more than any other spider.

Triangulate cobweb spider

Steatoda triangulosa

Small, brown, with a row of pale triangles down the abdomen. Lives in the same low corners and window frames a widow would, and turns up indoors far more often.

Common house spider

Parasteatoda tepidariorum

Mottled tan and brown with a rounded abdomen, in messy cobwebs in ceiling corners, under eaves and behind furniture. The most photographed spider in American houses, and an autumn indoor regular.

Mistaken for a brown recluse

Grass spider or funnel weaver

Agelenopsis

Brown with two dark stripes down the front body segment, long spinnerets at the back, and a flat sheet web with a funnel retreat. A recluse has one violin mark, no stripes, no sheet web, and spins almost nothing.

Woodlouse spider

Dysdera crocata

Red orange front half, cream abdomen, and huge forward pointing jaws. Six eyes like a recluse, which causes the confusion, but the two tone colour is unmistakable and it lives under stones and logs.

Cellar spider

Pholcidae

Thread thin legs many times the body length, hanging in a loose web in basement corners and shaking when disturbed. Tan like a recluse, and nothing else about it is.

Southern house spider

Kukulcania hibernalis

The male is a long legged brown spider that wanders across floors and walls in the South and gets called a recluse constantly. Eight eyes in a tight cluster, a much larger body, and it lives in cracks in outside walls.

A glossy black widow spider hanging upside down in her web on coarse cloth, the red hourglass on the underside of the round abdomen in full view — The black widow the lookalikes are compared against: glossy, round bodied, upside down in a low tangle web, with the red hourglass underneath. A false widow is purplish brown and carries nothing underneath. “Adult Female Black Widow” by Shenrich91, CC BY-SA 3.0

A brown recluse spider on a plain pale surface, uniform tan with long unbanded legs and a darker violin shaped mark on the front body segment — The brown recluse the lookalikes are compared against: plain tan, unbanded legs, six eyes in three pairs. A funnel weaver has two dark stripes and a sheet web; a cellar spider has legs many times its body length. “Brown-recluse-2”, Br-recluse-guy, Public domain

If someone is bitten

What to do about a spider bite in Alaska

First

Wash the bite with soap and water. That is the whole of the first aid. Skip creams, heat, ice and anything from a kitchen cupboard.

Then

Call Poison Control on 1-800-222-1222. Free, staffed around the clock, and they will tell you what to watch for over the next hours. They ask about symptoms, never for a species name.

Go to a hospital

For muscle cramping, sweating, spreading pain, or a wound that keeps getting worse over a day or two. Those are the signs that matter after a widow or recluse bite, and treatment depends on them, never on identifying the spider.

About the spider

A bite is never an identification. Skin reactions have dozens of causes and most marks blamed on spiders are something else. If the spider is already dead and in a container, bring it; never hunt for one.

Poison Control: 1-800-222-1222, any time, any state.

Common questions

Alaska spider season FAQ

Why are there so many spiders in my house in Alaska right now?

Are there joro spiders in Alaska?

Are there black widows in Alaska?

Not as an established population. Alaska has a single western black widow record in the entire verified set, a stray, against thousands of records of harmless spiders from Ketchikan to Fairbanks. Every spider an Alaskan meets indoors in September is a house spider, a funnel weaver or an orbweaver. A widow can arrive in shipped produce or a moved vehicle anywhere in the country, which is what the handful of records here represent, and Poison Control on 1-800-222-1222 is the number for any bite question regardless of the state.

Are there brown recluse spiders in Alaska?

No verified brown recluse record exists in Alaska, or at most a stray or two. The brown recluse is a spider of the south central states, from Texas and Oklahoma through Missouri to Tennessee and Kentucky, and the brown spider in a Alaska basement is a funnel weaver, a cellar spider or a woodlouse spider. A skin reaction here is not a recluse bite by default; Poison Control on 1-800-222-1222 will help sort out what it is.

What spiders come indoors in Alaska in the fall?

What should I do if I am bitten by a spider?

Also indoors this season

The rest of your Alaska autumn

Alaska venomous snakesThe other animal people fear on sight, with the same answer: a short real list and a long list of lookalikes.Alaska fall invadersStink bugs, boxelder bugs and lady beetles head for the siding in the same weeks the spiders wander.Alaska rodent seasonMice move toward buildings as the nights cool, and the gaps they use are the gaps spiders use.

More West spider season pages

Species lists, record counts and monthly curves are research grade observations from the iNaturalist API, aggregate counts only, snapshot 2026-09-19 with the curves read live in your browser. They measure how often people find and photograph a species, never how many there are, and a species with no record here may still live here. Season windows are drawn from those curves and are climatological typicals. For any bite, wash with soap and water and call Poison Control on 1-800-222-1222. National picture: spider season by state.
Hero image: “Tegenaria-domestica-chb” by Chb, CC BY 3.0