Wolf Spider?
Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 12:36 PM
Is this a kind of wolf spider? It was on the floor of an old garage and moved very quickly. It was almost the size of a compact disc with legs outreached. Body was about size of bottle cap.
JR
USA, northeast
Hi JR,
This is a Dolomedes Fishing Spider, not a Wolf Spider. Fishing Spiders are in the Nursery Web Spider group, and like Wolf Spiders, they are hunting spiders and not snare web building spiders. We believe your specimen is a White Banded Fishing Spider, Dolomedes albineus, based on an image posted to BugGuide. Your location, USA, northeast, is a bit vague. BugGuide lists sightings as far north as Delaware, but that doesn’t mean the species is unknown in New England. If this is not the White Banded Fishing Spider, it is another member of the genus Dolomedes.
Thanks Daniel, very interesting! I am sorry about the vague location. I
found it in Norridgewock, Maine, about 40 minutes north from Augusta and 1.5
hours north from Portland.
Thanks again, Jim
This beauty is indeed a “wolf spider,” and likely the species Hogna baltimoriana. Wolf spiders and fishing spiders are often confused for one another; typically wolf spiders are found on horizontal surfaces (mainly the ground), whereas fishing spiders occupy vertical planes like tree trunks. If/when someone is close enough to see the eyes, the two types are very different, so that helps for identification, too.
Thanks for this correction on an old posting Mandy. We are a bit better now than then and we don’t think we would have gotten the family wrong if we had received this submission this year.