Spider Saturday - Wolf Spider

Here is my first post in the arachnids community on a #spiderday

Here is a nice plump wolf spider that got into my condo from my balcony.

Fortunately it was so fat that it couldn't run that fast so I was able to get it to sit still for a few photos.

Wolf spiders may look scary but I've been catching them and handling them my whole life and have never been bitten. They are smart and know how to differentiate prey from predator and they don't tend to bite predators opting to run away.

I found this one in fall so it was probably looking for a warm place to stay the winter.

I brought out some of the leaves I pressed for fall as a backdrop for the spider photoshoot.

It turned out to be quite the model in high contrast light. Here you can see how translucent they are.

I ended up keeping it for a week feeding it some waxworms before letting it go in a dusty shed. It can overwinter there and possibly find some bugs to eat in the shed.

This was a rather small wolf spider, at first glance I thought it was a grass spider but after taking note of the eye pattern I realized it was a wolf spider with two eyes on top, two big eyes in the middle and four small eyes under the two big eyes.

Here's a good lurking shot.

And a more didactic white background shot.

Here in Illinois the wolf spiders are pretty small compared to the ones I would find in Arizona that seemed like half the size of your hand.

That's all for now, happy #spiderday