Natural Science Forum / Biology / Entomology / March 2007

I've been seeing these bad boys in our basement ever since we moved into
this house.  I don't see them frequently (or less frequently than I used
to) and I don't have any particular fear or hate of spiders, but I want
to make sure that it's not dangerous.

Here is a link to the picture of it (dead).

http://widescreen.org/images/unidentified_spider.jpg

It's not a brown recluse as far as I can tell.  The definitive violin
was conspicuously absent.  In fact, I couldn't make out a pattern of any
kind.  It is primarily dark brown with medium brown highlights, although
in low light it looks completely black. It has some fine hairs on the
legs as you'll see in the photo, but it seems to be predominantly
hairless.  Now that I think about it, there are no spider webs present
in my basement.

Any assistance in identifying what type of spider this is will be
appreciated.