| |
Female |
It builds the
familiar sheet-webs that sparkle with dew drops over grassy grounds
at dawn. The spider hides in a silken funnel that leads to the web
and pounces on any grasshopper that lands on it. |
Classification:
Family Lycosidae, Wolf Spiders.
Habitat: Lawns and grassy areas.
Female: 10-12 mm.
Male: 6-9 mm.
Distribution: Singapore, Myanmar,
India, China.
|
| This
species belongs to a group of Wolf Spiders whose posterior spinnerets
are longer than the other spinnerets. |
 Most
Wolf Spiders hunt on the ground. Female Wolf Spiders are immediately recognisable
in the field because they roam around with a spherical egg-sac attached
to their spinnerets. The egg-sac is made up of two halves united by a
seam.
Newly hatched spiderlings
can sometimes be seen riding on the back of their mother (right, Pardosa
sp. female). The spiderlings apparently do not feed while on the mother's
back, surviving on the remains of their yolk. If they fall off, they can
still hang on to the mother by a silken life-line, and can easily return
to the mother's back via its legs or palps. The spiderlings disperse only
after undergoing a moulting.
Eye
arrangement of a
Wolf Spider, Pardosa sp.
Note the swollen palps (black)
of the male. |
The eyes are in three rows comprising a front row of four small eyes,
and a median and back row of two larger eyes each. When a male meets
a female, it waves its palps and performs a series of push-up movements.
|
A
male
Pardosa pseudoannulata
waving its black-and-white
palps during courtship |
| These
antics serve to establish the identity of the male, a signal to the
female that it is a suitor of the same species to be mated with, and
not food to be consumed! |
|
