The Urban Pantheist

After getting run out of the Edison/Ford house (It was xmas eve, and the staff probably wanted to get to see their families) we poked a finger at the map and found this state park. We hiked blindly, deeper and deeper into sandy soil, palmettos and scattered pines. I kept expecting to find the bay, but we headed in exactly the wrong direction. We'll have to take another whack at it next time we're in the area. Not that it was totally wasted, we saw...

( Read more... )

A Northern Wolf Spider Alopecosa aculeata refuses to hold still for long on my hand.

My step daughter turned this spider up while doing some yard work. She asked why it was called a wolf spider and I explained that it was its mournful howl during nights illuminated by the full moon, and that it hunts in packs and has a rigid family social structure. Actually none of that is true; I didn't even tell her that, but maybe I will next time she asks. Wolf spiders were probably named that back when wolves were hated pests that preyed on livestock, not honorable keystone species found on t shirts in stores that smell like incense. Wolf spiders hunt alone, like most other spiders, and do so without spinning a web. They chase down their prey, which is probably the wolfiest thing about them.


I made my identification mostly from this photo, which shows the orientation of the eyes (crucial when identifying spider) and some other details. If I am right (and I surely could be wrong--identifying spiders to species mostly involves looking at spider genitals under microscopes) then this is a species found throughout the northern hemisphere. The scientific name translates more or less to "Fox spider." I suppose that might be more apt: foxes usually hunt alone, and pounce on their prey. I'd want a "fox spider" to be reddish orange, though. This is a new species to this blog! Previously I have featured other wolf spiders as a "more urban species" entry, and as a curiosity found at Cutler Park (in Dedham before we lived in Dedham!)

Striped wolf spider Gladicosa sp. (probably)

Wolf Spiders are generally fairly large spiders that don't spin webs to trap their prey. They are familiar to many people in the southern United States as household animals, usually an unwelcome appearance. Of course, like all but about three types of spiders in North America, wolf spiders do not have a harmful bite. But this individual had a leg span of an inch and a half or so (3cm) and was the largest spider I'd seen in quite some time. I can understand why a wolf spider in one's home might inspire nervousness.

At first I was sure that this was an Agelena spider, strayed from his web. The pattern on the body is about right, and some Agelenas are fairly large. But when I examined the pattern of eyes in the second photo, and compared it in my spider book, it was not a match. Instead the relatively large forward facing eyes, in two rows of four, identify it as a Lycosid. The closest match using other field marks, notably the stripes and the orange-tan color, is the Genus Gladicosa, or striped wolf spider, a group relatively recently reclassified from the type Genus Lycosa.



Striped wolf spiders are nocturnal beasts that roam through leaf litter in oak forests looking for insect prey. Just outside the door where these photos were taken, is the great artificial oak forest of Franklin Park in Boston, covered with a thick blanket of snow. This spider probably found paltry hunting out there, and moved toward the building, with it's year-round warmth and year round source of delicious crickets, cockroaches, woodlice, and earwigs. When I found him (his large palps and skinny abdomen suggest he is a male) he had fallen on hard times. He was sluggish, and after some handling began to curl his legs toward his underside in the classic spider death pose. Hopefully his offspring are out there in the warmth of decomposing leaves, snug in an egg-case the female is carrying.