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I live in the USA in south Louisiana. I woke up this morning to find my yard covered in hundreds of spider webs.

enter image description here

Each of those little white puffs is a spider web. Inside of each web is one little red spider. enter image description here

The spiders are pretty small. Less than half an inch long.enter image description here

Anyone know what they are?

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    $\begingroup$ xkcd.com/8 $\endgroup$
    – CDspace
    Sep 19, 2016 at 21:31
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    $\begingroup$ @CDspace Seriously, there's an XKCD for absolutely everything... $\endgroup$
    – Fiksdal
    Sep 20, 2016 at 0:26

1 Answer 1

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It is a black-tailed red sheetweaver, Florinda coccinea.

Identified by its red body colour , location (USA) and black caudal tubercle.

Image1

More images to be found on bugguide.net

It is a species of web-building spider belonging to the family Linyphiidae. It is the only species in the genus Florinda. It is sometimes known as the red grass spider. This species is common in the southeastern United States, inhabiting grasslands, lawns, and agricultural fields.

Reference: Wikipedia

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    $\begingroup$ Rare worldwide and common in a location. $\endgroup$
    – coteyr
    Sep 19, 2016 at 17:23
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    $\begingroup$ I have seen these suckers before. Usually their web is most visible in the early morning when the grass is dew covered. They seem to need a lot of space. I have seen them in large yards and fields but never small yards. There a little neat, but mostly harmless. Birds should come soon and eat most of them. You should try to avoid mowing them. I'd be surprised if they were there for more then a couple of days, assuming your don't have a mosquito problem. $\endgroup$
    – coteyr
    Sep 19, 2016 at 17:27
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    $\begingroup$ Hey, I saw a couple of these in my yard just this morning. This one missed a meal $\endgroup$
    – Wayne Werner
    Sep 19, 2016 at 18:21
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    $\begingroup$ @WayneWerner I loved the plot twist at the end of your video. It was like deus ex machina, or dog ex machina :-) $\endgroup$
    – Cave Johnson
    Sep 19, 2016 at 18:41
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    $\begingroup$ Cat ex-machina, actually. She decided that I should be petting her instead of taking videos of boring grey patches on the ground. $\endgroup$
    – Wayne Werner
    Sep 19, 2016 at 19:08

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