Wolf Spider

Photos taken:
2023-05-27/28

I found a wolf spider!

For the last few weeks I've consistently been seeing a large-ish spider darting in and out of the rocks by the pond area, but actually getting a clear look has been difficult. Thanks to some patience and a macro lens I finally managed to take some pictures of her.

(I've hidden the photos behind a details tag for now, just in case Neocities shows a massive picture of a spider to anyone scrolling through my activity feed.)

Click here to see a cute spider!

Here she is!

Close up photo of a large, light-brown spider. The spider is facing the camera and has two big eyes on the side of its head, another two big eyes looking forward, and four smaller eyes positioned underneath those. The spider's legs and palps have lots of long thick spines on them.

The macro lens makes her look huge here, but in reality she's only about 1cm long, which is still fairly big compared to most spiders I guess.

A bird's-eye view of the same spider. There are four darker patches of fur on the top of her abdomen.

Rather than spin webs, wolf spiders actively hunt prey using their extremely good eyesight. This made it quite difficult for me to get photos, because even when I was a few metres away she would dart out of sight if I made the slightest movement. In the end I managed to get them by sitting very still in the grass for a few minutes until she came back out.

Though I'm not super confident in my identification skills, this is probably a spotted wolf spider (Pardosa amentata). They're common in the UK, particularly in damp areas like the pond I found her next to.

A side view of the spider sitting on a rock.

She's really cute! I like the ring-like banding around the base of her legs, and the lighter coloured fur running down the middle of her thorax has a really nice pattern to it. Also the fur in general is beautiful! My style sheet causes photos to be shrunk down quite a bit, so I'd recommend zooming in to get a good close-up look at it.

But wait. What's that round thing she's carrying behind her?

An egg sac!! Congratulations!! This spider is going to be a Mum~

Close-up image of the spider's abdomen, which is holding onto a large round egg sac. The egg sac is a much lighter colour than spider but has patches of darker brown colouration on its surface.

Once the babies hatch, they'll climb up onto their Mum's back and stay there for a few weeks until they're old enough to look after themselves. Wolf spiders are great parents and she will look out for puddles so her kids can have something to drink. I'll make sure the pond area is topped up with water for when the babies hatch.

[UPDATE: The babies have hatched and I managed to get a few photos of them!!]

For more information on wolf spiders, I'd recommend Bogleech's article from his Spiderween series. It's a great introductory resource for learning about spiders and his site is a great resource in general for learning about biology. It's actually how I started to learn about bugs :)