Giant house spider

This article may lack focus or may be about more than one topic. In particular, the species has now been split into three again, so separate articles are needed. Please help improve this article, possibly by splitting the article and/or by introducing a disambiguation page, or discuss this issue on the talk page. (April 2020)

Giant house spider
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Chelicerata
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae
Infraorder:	Araneomorphae
Family:	Agelenidae
Genus:	Eratigena
Species:	E. atrica
Binomial name
Eratigena atrica (C. L. Koch, 1843)[1]
Synonyms[1]
Philoica atrica (C. L. Koch, 1843) Tegenaria atrica C. L. Koch, 1843 Tegenaria derouetae Denis, 1959 Tegenaria deroueti Dresco, 1957 Tegenaria duellica Simon, 1875 Tegenaria gigantea Chamberlin & Ivie, 1935 Tegenaria hibernica O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1891 Tegenaria larva Simon, 1875 Tegenaria nervosa Simon, 1870 Tegenaria praegrandis Fox, 1937 Tegenaria propinqua Locket, 1975 Tegenaria saeva Blackwall, 1844

The giant house spider has been treated as either one species, under the name Eratigena atrica, or as three species, E. atrica, E. duellica and E. saeva. As of April 2020^[update], the three species view was accepted by the World Spider Catalog. They are among the largest spiders of Central and Northern Europe. They were previously placed in the genus Tegenaria. In 2013, they were moved to the new genus Eratigena as the single species Eratigena atrica.^[2] In 2018, the three separate species were restored.^[3] The bite of these species does not pose a threat to humans or pets, and they are generally reluctant to bite, preferring instead to hide or escape.