Anyone ever heard of the "Red-Crowned" spider??

Question

I've found one in my back yard. It's black with 4 red horns and what appears to be a white "smiley" face. It's quite beautiful (for spiders anyways!) and want to know if it's poisonous. I'm also on the east coast and I haven't found any info for them supposedly being from this region. They're suppose to be from Hawaii.

Answer 1

I've heard of this spider--I've just not heard of it in the US. If we're thinking about the same spider. Anyway, all spiders are poisonous, but not all are poisonous to people. In North America there are only 3 (4 if you consider the yellow house spider) spiders considered to be poisonous and the RC Spider is not one of them.

That said, any bug or spider that bites and injects something can cause a reaction if a person has a sensitivity to it. Like some people, when they are bitten by a mosquito, have no (or a very minor) reaction while others may get welts the size of a silver dollar. A honeybee may cause one person to have a sore spot for a few hours--and another person may die. So with spiders, while being an overwhelmingly beneficial organism in our environment, should never be handled carelessly. if you leave them to themselves they are almost all reclusive and would rather run than attack.

Answer 2

I could not find any info on a spider called the "Red crowned spider", but I did find info on the"Happy Face Spider".

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0/happyface_02

http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/good-bad/spider.html

It is from Hawaii.

However, I did find some pics of Jewelled spiders and a couple of them have a sort of happy face look in the pattern of spots on them. Here is a link with pics.

http://www.spiderzrule.com/jewl.htm

Here is another site with more info, including that of the toxin.

http://www.spiderzrule.com/jewelspider.htm

All spiders have venom, but some are more potent than others. This one seems to produce mild local pain and swelling. However, you may want to watch it if you have an allergy to the venom.