Spider ID?

[telophase]

Any passing entomologists want to ID this spider for me? And NO it's not a black widow. :) It (and several of its sisters/children/cousins) are hanging out in my garage, and as the light isn't very good in there I couldn't tell if it had the hourglass on the abdomen (I'm kind of vague on the general silhouette of the black widow other than the bulbous abdomenXD), so I took this photo hoping that the macro setting would focus well enough in low light for me to tell. It worked enough for me to figure out it's not a black widow, which is the difference between going down there NOW with spider extermination in mind, or getting rid of the majority of them in my own time.

(Anyone who tells me that spiders are GOOD and kill other bugs is cordially invited to bite it. When the garage door electric eye sensor that keeps the door from shutting if there's something in the way has seven egg cases on it that is officially Too Damn Many Spiders. I don't mind them in small doses.)





ETA: There's also this spider:

Comments

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

There's nothign in the top picture for scale - how big was it? And could you describe the web, if any?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'd say the whole spider from tip of leg to tip of leg is less than an inch (ETA: Possibly closer to half an inch? I can check when I get home). The web is a sort of three-dimensional jobbie in a corner of the garage - not a traditional spoke-and-wheel pattern. I saw no evidence of a tunnel anywhere.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

My best guess is that they are both members of the genus Steatoda in the family Theridiidae, the cobweb spiders. This is the same family as the black widow, but Steatoda is significantly less venomous to humans. If I had them in my garage I'd probably take a broom to them if they were blocking the garage door sensor, but I wouldn't wage all out genocide.

Wiki's article on Steatoda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steatoda)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks. (Actually, would the venom be more of a problem to something the size of a cat?)