For those of you who can't get enough ...
It appears that we have a Wolf Spider. It also looks like it is a mommy. I am thinking of
transferring it to another jar and watching it for awhile. After all, how can I kill a mommy and babies? Here are some links on Wolf Spiders and a few pictures I found on the
Internet.
Wolf Spiders (takes a minute to load, but it is informative)
"The female wolf spider lays eggs in a large sac, which can be nearly as large as her own body. She attaches the egg sac to her body, and carries it until the eggs hatch. She then tears open the egg sac and the newly hatched spiders climb onto her back where they remain for up to a week."
"Such a high degree of parental care is relatively unusual among spiders". From
this site.
And last, but not least, this article on
spider dating.
**Edited to add: Two more interesting facts from
this site:
"Wolf spiders are ambush hunters. Instead of using a web to catch their prey, they sit and wait for their prey to walk by. They eat just about anything they can catch, including flies, mosquitoes, crickets, beetle larvae, and even other spiders. They bite their prey with sharp fangs and inject venom that liquefies the prey’s internal organs. The spider then sucks out the “soup.” "
"Wolf spiders live for about two years. When mature, males attract females by waving their front legs. After mating, the female wraps 50-200 eggs in a sac made of spider silk. She attaches the sac to the rear of her abdomen and carries it around for about a week. At the end of that time, she opens the sac and the
spiderlings crawl onto her abdomen. They ride around with their mother for another week, until they are large enough to hunt for themselves".
