Well, I guess it's a Gnaphosid given those massive spinnerets. There were two on this oak. I was impressed by the pink pattern on the abdomen. As I was taking this picture, I realized I was sitting on a leafless poison oak stem. Yay.
Wish I'd spent more time with this creature because it was quite beautiful. Rosy, silky silver, and yet all it got were shaky hands and a forgotten ISO. I haven't attempted to key it out yet but I don't have high hopes, because, well it's a spider. Spiders are hard when they're not dead in a dish. It had really enormous spinnerets (see below), so possibly a gnaphosid? Carapace was 4-5 mm, total body length something like 10-12 mm. Found under a rock on a very low hill near Cottonwood Springs camping area.
Ground spiders' (family Gnaphosidae) are reddish, brown, gray, striped, black spiders, and include nearly 2,000 described species in over 100 genera, distributed worldwide. This makes the family the seventh largest known. New species are still being discovered. They are closely related to Clubionidae.
