wolf spider mom carrying hundreds of spiderlings

[Lisa Taylor]

There have been a lot of these guys running around lately - this is a mother wolf spider with all of her babies on her back. Sometimes you see moms running around carrying their egg sacs, and then when the eggs hatch they all climb up onto her back and hang out there for the first week or so of their life. Looks pretty crowded up there...

By the way, these guys are also great for your garden - they are pretty voracious predators and will eat anything that tries to eat your plants. Unfortunately, if you have too many of them, they will also eat each other...

[Lisa Taylor]

They actually have four sets of eyes (eight eyes total). They have six on the front of the "face" facing forward, and then two that kind of point up and to the side. I agree that they are pretty cute :).

Maybe she needs all those eyes to keep track of all those babies :).

[Nancy Kelly]

Do they have 2 sets of eyes? And maybe a smaller set in front?

[Nancy Kelly]

Oh my gosh they are absolutely adorable.

[Erika Martinez]

haha hatchback....

[Nayeema Eusuf]

hatchback...

[Admin]

That poor mom spider has an expression on her face like "what the heck??" I can't even imagine what it would be like to have several hundred babies swarming you.....geez!

[Lisa Taylor]

the wolf spiderlings hang out on their mom's back for about a week. only wolf spiders do this though (as well as scorpions), but most spider moms don't protect their young at all. generally, the spiderlings are on their own as soon as they hatch.

yeah, the crab spiders around here are pretty harmless to people. but seeing the way they attack bees and flies, it's not surprising that you'd feel it if it bit your finger (they are pretty feisty) :).

[marcy]

WOW! GREAT PHOTO! i'm thinking of charlottes web. at what point do they leave the mother's back? speaking of spiders, i was out working in the garden and as i pulled up some plants felt a hot sting.shook out the plants and out fell a little crab spider like the one i posted before. they dont seem to be harmful to humans but ive got him in quarantine just in case.
i did however spot a cool bee (i think, perhaps a fly of some sort) i'll post it in a sec after i upload my camera.