Talk:Wolf spider

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Contents 1 Wrong Picture 2 Name 3 Size 4 Comparison 5 Page features overlap 6 Gallery

[edit] Wrong Picture

The picture included (mistakenly) at the end of the "wolf spider" article is a jumping spider. You can tell very easily by the "squared-off" front end of the cephalo-thorax and the eye arrangement. Also, if you have the living specimen, you will note that she will happily jump from the table to your finger tip, from finger tip to finger tip, and that she will also scale sheer glass walls with complete security. Wolf spiders do no better on glass than human beings (except for Spiderman, of course) ;-)

[edit] Name

Is the spider a wolf spider, Wolf spider, or Wolf Spider? The page name indicates the last, and the text of the artilce indicates the first. -SCEhardT 04:36, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

A good point, which I've now dealt with. Capital letters are controversial when applied to individual species; for whole groups, they're definitely not used. --Stemonitis 14:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Size

How big is the wolf spider? There's no real way to tell from the images and no mention of size in the article

This is not official, but my friend currently has one in his room and claims that, including legs, its about the size of his hand. And as such he's scared to go near the window, which is where he saw it last...

There are several genera of wolf spiders and even more species. I'm not sure of the size of the smallest of them, but the largest member of the Lycosidae in the United States is called the "Carolina Wolf Spider." Although I am living in N. Carolina, I have not seen one yet. But the books say that the body of this species is approximately one inch long.

Wolf spiders do not climb well. They can't go up glass, for instance. So they are at risk if they climb up walls. One danger is falling and injuring themselves. Another danger is falling into something that they can't climb out of -- like my bathtub. So if your friend is finding something on the floor near the window it may well be a wolf spider. If it is hanging out on the wall near the window it may be something else. A photo posted here would help.

Anyway, tell your friend that wolf spiders are among the real scairdy cats of the spider world. They have good vision, so it would be hard to put your hand down on one accidentally because it would see you and then your hand approaching and it would run away as fast as it could. Jumping spiders can be kind of like the squirrels that run around the tree trunk when they see you approaching but then circle around to keep an eye on you, whereas wolf spiders are more like rabbits that run as soon as they see you have started to move on them.

I've purchased a couple of species of spider that are supposed to be "aggressive," but I have yet to find one that will actually approach my hand and try to bite. (I know there are tarantulas that are kept as pets that have bitten their handlers -- mostly when surprised close to their homes I think. But most of us do not have tarantulas living wild, and tarantulas don't frequent houses.) Tell you friend to just not grab his eight-legged friend and he'll probably be perfectly safe. (Of course if he lives somewhere near Sydney, Australia, all bets are off.)P0M 14:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comparison

"After the eggs hatch, the multitude of tiny spiders climb onto their mother's abdomen, where she carries them for a considerable period of time, comparable to human relationships."

Is that last comment necessary?

I have cleaned that up, with a reference. It is not great yet, just better. (By the way, please sign your comments!) --Charles Gaudette 05:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page features overlap

The scientific classification box is overlapping the additional photos. I'm using FF 1.0.7. Also I just woke up to two wolf spiders here on my porch in Santa Cruz, CA. One of them was at least an inch and a half in body length and probably 4-5 inches in "legspan."

[edit] Gallery

I think the gallery at the end is too big and cluttered, although these pictures could be useful for the article. maybe we could move it to the talk page and work these pictures one by one into a nice long article about wolf spiders? :) --Sarefo 01:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)