Reconnecting with the Forgotten Spiders of Texas

by Eric Neubauer

Or: The most exciting part of the conference (for me) was getting there!

I’ve been chasing Pardosa wolf spiders from one corner of Texas to another all year. One species I hadn’t encountered was Pardosa littoralis, which I eventually learned was only found in brackish
marshland. I had wanted to check out the Texas coast for wolf spiders for sometime, and the TMN convention gave me an excellent excuse.

So, I drove to Houston via Surfside and Galveston. No one on iNat had encountered Pardosa littoralis south of New York, let alone Texas. They’d been observed in New Hampshire and Nova Scotia at the opposite end of their range. I happily found some in small areas at several locations without a muddy mishap.

I wonder when the last human paid them any attention? Someone must have once, because they were known to be in Texas. Bonus: I’m now comfortable identifying these in Texas, something I couldn’t do before, since I never saw one in person or even in a photo, only those in observations made 2,000 miles away.

Male (left) and female (right) images attached. Body length about 2/10ths of an inch, male (black) slightly smaller than female.