Woodland giant wolf spider

Conservation Status

IUCN Red List

not listed

NatureServe

NNR - Unranked

Minnesota

not listed

Description

Woodland giant wolf spider is a large burrowing spider. It occurs in the United States and southern Canada east of the Great Plains. It is found in woodlands and woodland edges.

Adults are active from May to mid-October. They build burrows, 5″ to 8″ deep, often hidden with straw and twigs. They mostly hunt at night, but occasionally during the day. They are sometimes found in silk-lined depressions under rocks.

Females are 1″ to 1¼″ (25.0 to 30.5 mm) in length and have a 3″ to 4″ (75 to 100 mm) legspan. The body is entirely covered with short hairs. The overall coloration is usually consistently dark, though some individuals have a pale background color.

The front part of the body (cephalothorax) is longer than wide. The upper side (carapace) is dark reddish brown (mahogany). A furrow (dorsal groove) extends from the middle toward the rear of the carapace. Numerous slender black lines radiate from the dorsal groove toward the margins. There is a slender, pale, longitudinal stripe on the front half of the carapace that extends from the eye region to the dorsal groove, and there is usually a pale stripe on each lateral margin.

The eye region and the face are dark. There are eight eyes in two rows of four. The front (anterior) row has four small, equally spaced eyes, and it is slightly curved forward. The median eyes (AME) are larger than the lateral eyes (ALE). The rear (posterior) row has two very large posterior median eyes (PME) and two large posterior lateral eyes (PLE). The PLE are set well behind the PME, and some authors describe this arrangement as three rows of eyes. The rear row is about equal in width to the middle row. The PME are closer to the PLE than to each other. The PME and PLE have a layer of reflective tissue internally. This allows the spider to see in relative darkness. It also causes their eyes to shine when hit by the beam of a flashlight. The basal segments of the jaws (chelicerae) are large, powerful, and dark brown to black. The front and rear margins each have three teeth.

The abdomen is egg-shaped and brown. The middle front part (cardiac region) is slightly darker, and there is sometimes a pair of small light spots along the rear of the cardiac region. On the rear third of the abdomen there are four or five slightly darker chevrons.

The legs are long and stout. Leg banding is variable, ranging from uniform dark brown to faintly or distinctly banded, especially on the rear legs.

Males are smaller, ¾″ to ⅞″ (18.5 to 21.3 mm) in length. The lateral stripes on the carapace are broken into series of dashes. The legs are pale without dark bands except on the rear leg, where there are often dusky dark bands at the end of the segments.

Size

Female total length: 1″ to 1¼″ (25.0 to 30.5 mm)

Male total length: ¾″ to ⅞″ (18.5 to 21.3 mm)

Legspan: 3″ to 4″ (75 to 100 mm)

Web

No web

Similar Species

Habitat

Woodlands and woodland edges.

Ecology

Foraging

Active hunter (Cursorial Hunter)

Prey

Behavior

Adults are mostly nocturnal

Life Cycle

Season

May to mid-October

Distribution

Sources

24, 30, 82, 83.

Tigrosa aspersa (Hentz, 1844) in Bánki, O., Roskov, Y., Döring, M., Ower, G., Hernández Robles, D. R., Plata Corredor, C. A., Stjernegaard Jeppesen, T., Örn, A., Pape, T., Hobern, D., Garnett, S., Little, H., DeWalt, R. E., Miller, J., Orrell, T., Aalbu, R., Abbott, J., Abreu, C., Acero P, A., et al. (2026). Catalogue of Life (2026-08-26 XR). Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgyy9