Tag: new species

by Eric Neubauer

In late April I made my first extensive visit to South Texas. My primary goal was to explore the ranges of three closely related wolf spider species/subspecies, only one of which has been officially recognized. I was successful in that although populations along the Rio Grande appeared reduced by an extended dryness there. South Texas has a broad range of habitats from coastal grassland to dry thornscrub, and each of the three species/subspecies has found a different niche there. Going by
iNaturalist observations, they are endemic to South Texas and Reynosa, Mexico.

This effort was suddenly interrupted when I started looking for them at Mustang Island State Park and found something else. Along the road near the park office I came across a bunch of “little brown spiders” except that they were more like medium size with body lengths of up to 12 mm. I immediately knew they were an unusual species for me and photographed 6, which thankfully included both male and female adults. The ones below are all males

After I got home and started uploading them to iNaturalist, I was unable to find an exact match. I thought Alopecosa was best choice for genus based on face and general appearance but none of the described species in the genus were a match. Granted that no images of some small species exist, wolf spiders of this large size are pretty well documented. I was very lucky to discover a whole population in this case. We are aware of a couple of larger spiders that also defy identification, but these are known from just a few observations and remain paused due to lack of evidence.

At 11:30 PM, it was time to drive back to the motel after spending hours in the dark with wolf spiders at Port Aransas and the State Park.

by Eric Neubauer

Sorry to miss the last meeting, but it was prime (for January) wolf spider weather in the early evening and I had unfinished business down near Alligator Creek.

Two images are attached. Both are adult males and would be considered large wolf spiders with a body length approaching a half inch. One is Tigrosa georgicola, a common species around here. I’ve seen them near the creek several times.

The other [P111694] has been baffling me after I found the first one on New Year’s Eve. Field identification guidance is fairly well developed for the larger wolf spiders, but there were reasons for eliminating all of them. I’ve found three now, so the first wasn’t an oddity.

Originally, I thought it might be Alopecosa, which only has a few images on the internet. At present I’m thinking it might be a morph of the other species I found there, Tigrosa georgicola. If I was still taking typical wolf spider photos, that is dorsal views only that weren’t highly detailed, it would have ended up as “something in the Schizocosa ocreata species group” and that would be the end of it.

As it is now, I can’t get beyond subfamily Lycosinae but am favoring a rare morph of an existing Tigrosa species or much less likely an undescribed Tigrosa species. Considering all three were found in the same area, they could all be siblings. Their mother would be proud.

I suppose there could be another option: a hybrid of Tigrosa georgicola and Schizocosa perplexa but I’d think the two are too unrelated to produce offspring.