Nursery Web Spider at Springbrook

 At Springbrook's Pumpkin Night Halloween Program last Saturday we had some pretty big pretend spiders.  On Monday, as we cleaned the props after bringing them inside, this very large REAL spider jumped off a fake spider and ran across the floor. 

This Nursery Web Spider, I think Dolomedes tenebrosus, has a leg span of about 3 inches, and moves faster than most of the nature center staff are comfortable with.

This is a female, and with little left to eat outside, and cold weather coming, will be lucky to find a warm place to stay with food to eat.

I photographed her on a wild sunflower seed head.

Look at the close up of the eyes in the pictures below.

Those are her fangs covered by hair hanging down below her 8 eyes. I would not want to be a small bug trying to escape from her.



 Nursery Web Spiders have very good eyesight, and chase their prey down.  Many can also run across water.








But they do have a serious problem with eyelashes, as can be seen in the picture below.  But maybe I just found her on a bad hair day.