Can anyone identify this?

Put my girlfriend's mind at rest – she is terrified of spiders and is quite perturbed that this fella in our living room appears to have what looks like a skull on his back!?!

It looks like an Arachnobastardus Certaindeatharus commonly known as the 5 second spider due to the length of time between bite and demise.

But on a more serious note it doesn't look like any spider i've ever seen in the UK so i have to ask, are you in the UK??

Looks like a false widow. We're getting a lot of them at the moment. One of if not the only UK spider that can break your skin with it's bite. Some people can react quite badly to the bites. They've been in the UK for around 100 years IIRC but they do seem to have been multiplying quickly recently. We found our first one 3 years ago and this year we must have had 5 or 6 in the house, 2 in one day earlier this week. They were mainly restricted to the south coast but have been spreading their range recently.

It's not impossible that they could kill you but if you had a bad reaction to a bite but I'm not sure there is a single documented case. A man living a couple of streets away from us was hospitalised by one when he rolled over on it in bed and got himself bitten a couple of years ago.

You might not want to let the girlfriend read this.

Agreed ^, it's a Steatoda and probably a S. nobilis.

They are common, shy and cautious (to the point of scared) spiders, so unless you poke at them, or encounter one unexpectedly, they won't bother you, and we can co-exist quite happily.

I have lots of them living here – they've been here for years, and live quite happily in the conservatory eating other insects that fly in … They have never bothered me once.

They are web spiders, so they'll sit in the corner and wait for stuff to get stuck. I find I have to rescue bees quite a lot from their webs. The bees get stuck, but thrash the web so much the spider keeps out of the way (fearing for it's life no doubt), but they are strong webs, so the bees often can't free themselves either.

I've never heard of their bite being any worse than a wasp sting, and I can only recall perhaps three documented bite cases in the last 20+ years. I think the hospitalised bloke above might have had underlying conditions, (or some kinda allergy), plus wasn't there some doubt as to exactly what he'd been bitten by?.

The majority of other UK spiders are poisonous too, but, as avdave2 says, these are one of the only spider species that can break human skin.

Spiders are very useful to have around tho', so if this one is safely out of the way, I'd leave her be.

You might like to point her to this article for a good, sensible, reassuring view of them:
http://naturenet.net/blogs/index.php/2007/05/02/steatoda

The angle of your shot gives a great look to the marking … (but it does carry on, and over the back of the abdomen in a similar way).

Spiders are very useful to have around

Agree – I encourage them in the shed – it stops my wife going in there and seeing how much bike stuff I've got…

Some good info and pics here

I think the guy who was bitten here in Brighton was bitten several times and just happened to have a bad reaction. As far as I remember he was mid 30's and in good health. I'm quite happy to have them around as OCB says they are not aggressive and will only bite if you provoke them.

Cheers people – from the pics dunstick linked to, yes it definitely looks like a false widow. I'm actually quite impressed – although the girlfriend is slightly less impressed I have to say!

What made me notice it is that it lives above a shelf that I stood on a chair to clean last night and was surprised to see the sheer volume of fly carcusses lying on it, in a relatively short space of time! This thing has quite an appetite.

Nat wants it gone before the baby arrives. 🙁

Agree – I encourage them in the shed – it stops my wife going in there and seeing how much bike stuff I've got..

Ditto that she hasnt been in the shed for over a year because of the spiders! Mind you backing onto a field there are some rather large ones in there!

I think it does look like S.nobilis too, from the angle of the photo.
I really wouldn't worry about it biting. They are very shy and would almost always flee and hide rather than bite.
As far as the venom is concerned, it is very mild. There is a very small chance of an allergic reaction to it, but more people have allergies to bee stings or peanuts and you will more likely get bitten by a dog, scratched by a cat or stung on nettles than bitten by a S.nobilis.
It is very rare for a spider to bite anything other than what it thinks is food. Keep your fingers away and you will never get bitten.

the other spider that can break skin is the wood-louse eating spider, (Dysderidae)

they ARE NOT shy in fact they are quite aggressive. KILL ON SIGHT!

the bite is a huge welt, like a 3in dia. flea bite and quite painful