Amazing Facts on Wolf Spiders Which You Have Never Heard Of
They are found almost anywhere around the globe. Wolf spiders are known for their ability to hunt down their prey using their sharp eyesight and strong bodies.
These spiders are found mostly in meadows and grasslands but they can also be seen in wetlands, rainforests, deserts, and mountains.
Female wolf spiders vs. male wolf spiders
Wolf spiders have dark markings on a tan, black, grey, or a brown colored body. This kind of coloring helps the wolf spider in camouflaging effectively and catching a prey easily.
It also helps it keep itself safe from its predators. In this species of spiders, females are larger than males and their size generally ranges from 3 centimeters to 6.4 millimeters.
Furthermore, wolf spiders have a distinctive arrangement of eyes and an extremely sharp night vision. Interestingly, they have the arrangement of 8 eyes or you can say 4 pairs of eyes. Thus, they prefer to hunt for their prey during the dark.
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How do wolf spiders catch their prey?
Wolf spiders usually eat other spiders and ground-dwelling insects. Some species of these spiders are known to chase and grab their prey. Their speed is extremely good.
So if you see a spider running quite fast, then there is a high possibility that it is a wolf spider.
Other spider species have a tendency of waiting for their prey and once it reaches near them, they ambush it. However, wolf spiders jump on their prey and then grab it between their legs. Once they get a good hold of it, they roll on their back and bite it.
They are also known to bite at times when they feel threatened. Wolf spiders are a great source of food for rodents, birds, and lizards.
How do wolf spiders mate?
For mating, wolf spiders use their eyes to give cues for wanting to mate with another spider. The male wolf spider waves its pedipalps in a unique pattern or sometimes bangs them together. This acts as a cue to the female spider that the male has an interest in them.
Female spiders lay dozens of eggs after mating and then create an egg sac by wrapping it in silk. The female spiders are known to carry their egg sac on their back.
This egg sac is attached to the spinnerets from their abdomen’s tip. Even after hatching out of the eggs, the young spiders take a ride on their mother’s back for a few days till they get mature.
If you end up coming across a wolf spider, there is a high probability that you presume it to be a poisonous creature. But in reality, wolf spiders aren’t poisonous at all. Although these spiders have venom filled in their body, when it attacks, it injects that poison into a body.
Until and unless that poison isn’t injected in the body, there isn’t any harm.
Usually, wolf spiders do not have a tendency to attack a person.
They only attack a human in situations wherein they feel scared or provoked. So, to save yourself from a wolf spider bite, you only need to make sure that you do not provoke or scare it in any way.
These facts would now have enlightened you more about the wolf spider, including how it behaves, it’s eating habits, mating cues, and how you can save yourself from its bite, in addition to other wolf spider facts.
