by Eric Neubauer
[Note: our most popular article on this site is Wolf Spider Identification. This article provides a brief update, plus links to Eric Neubauer’s recent presentation at the 2024 Texas Master Naturalist Annual Meeting.]
This material serves as an introduction to a new wolf spider species that is quite common in Texas and Oklahoma. It is also known in nine other states as far away as North Carolina. There is sufficient information to identify both juveniles and adults in the field as well as learn something about its life cycle. This is a departure from tradition in that a tremendous amount of information is made available to the public before publication in a scientific journal and formal acceptance of the species name.
Links to slides and explanatory text in lieu of a speaker follow:
I hope the average amateur naturalist and even professional arachnologist will find this more user friendly than the typical scientific paper.
I’m now waiting to see if any adult females make it into November. There were some with babies out there just a week ago. They outlasted my last Argiope aurantia. Someone needs to compose an “End of the Season Blues.”
Not to worry, some other wolf spider species are nearing maturity including the other undescribed Hogna west of the Edwards Plateau and another unknown I saw three adult males of last winter. I don’t want to say it’s an undescribed species until I see some adult females and do a thorough search of the possibilities. Exciting times!
Hogna incognita postscript
There’s always more to know about a species. Based on last year’s observations, adult females last though October. As the class of 2024 dwindled, it looked like some might make it into November in parts of Texas and Oklahoma. I held my breath and went out with my headlamp on as soon as the sun set on November 1st. I found one fairly quickly in the stubble of the hay field out back. She was away from her burrow and I caught her easily.
About a third of her family had already dispersed. Another half dozen or so decided to go off on their own while I did the photography. I collected her and the spiderlings that had disembarked and released them on higher ground next to a crack in the soil for cover if they needed it, and just in case of heavy rain.
More on Eric’s Research
The November 2024 isue of Texas Coop Power magazine features an article on Eric and “his” spider: A Wolf Spider Misidentified for 120 Years Gets Its Due, by Sheryl Smith-Rodgers. Check it out!
Nature Along the El Camino Real 