I encountered the largest Illinois spider I’ve seen in a corner of our bedroom when vacuuming prior to our trip to Mexico. Need to get this individual classified correctly. It was almost as large as some of the spiders I encountered in Costa Rica and in Arizona. I initially classified it as a wolf spider, but I don’t think the eyes are right for a wolf spider. More to come…
Impressive Illinois Spider (Family Lycosidae?)
June 21, 2011 by allthingsbiological
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged spider | 6 Comments
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I grew up (Lafayette, IN) horrified of these huge monsters. They particularly liked to hang out in our pile of dirty laundry on our laundry room floor. My family always called them wolf spiders. I’m interested in hearing what you find out.
Hi, David. I was curious whether you found out anything more about the ID on this spider? I was thinking Lycosidae too, but agree that the eye arrangement is odd. Check out this currently unidentified individual and read the comments:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/13275
I thought this looked kind of similar, but it’s hard to tell when comparing to a single photo. What do you think?
Hmm, looks to be pretty clearly the same thing, doesn’t it?
I’m still quite the amateur when it comes to spider ID, so I wouldn’t want to say anything definitive. All the contributors and experts on BugGuide are terribly nice and eager to help though… I’d recommend submitting your image(s) to the ID Request section (http://bugguide.net/node/view/6/bgimage) with a link to the other spider post and see what kind of response you get from the community. Good luck!
I would like to know too. Just found one in my basement this afternoon. It was huge. Thought it was a mouse until I was close enough to see the legs. At first it had its legs close to its body
Hi David,
It is indeed a wolf spider. In fact I have one now that I identified and photographed in January. See https://thingsbiological.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/wolf-spider-hogna-sp-added-to-the-classroom/ and https://thingsbiological.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/an-unexpected-new-years-day-surprise/.