by Eric Neubauer
I didn’t have my usual spider accessories when I encountered this spider indoors, and the only thing I could find to use was a small glass jar. After getting the spider to run into the jar and taking it outside, I took some ventral photos followed by some dorsal photos after I released it. The lighting was harsh, but the images were adequate for identification. At the time I thought it was one of the darker Tigrosa
species because I knew it was something I hadn’t seen and was expecting to eventually find some in Gause. Tigrosa is a common genus, but I’m not very familiar with it because I rarely encounter it. I soon found out my ID was wrong but didn’t feel too bad since the most recent Tigrosa helluo observed at iNat looked just like mine. After looking at all the Tigrosa options, I found that all had a narrow carapace pale medial band, which ruled mine out. I thought it might be Trochosa, but the medial band wasn’t as strong between the posterior eyes as those I’d seen before. I checked Varacosa before returning to Trochosa. Looking at the Trochosa sepulchralis observations, about a quarter looked just like mine.
So how does my observation fit into the iNaturalist world? There are 78 observations of the species of which 48 are in Texas showing how much we love our wolf spiders. The range of Trochosa sepulchralis covers most of the US east of the Rockies except for the extreme northern parts.
There are probably significantly more observations at iNat that are unidentified or misidentified. I know for sure there is at least one under Tigrosa helluo. This was my first Trochosa and the first Trochosa sepulchralis observation for Milam County. Note that my ID hasn’t been seconded yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
Nature Along the El Camino Real 