I saw one of the weirdest creatures while hiking last week. At first I thought I saw a small pine cone moving along the forest floor. A closer look revealed this spider, about a 2/3 of an inch in size.
The combination of that pine-cone-like abdomen, the eight legs sticking out, and those freaky multiple eyes… I’m surprised I haven’t had spider nightmares.
Update: I think this is probably a a female wolf spider with spiderlings on her back (see comments below). I still like the “pine cone spider” name I gave it though.
Wow that is one weird looking spider. Never seen anything like it. Hope you had a fun birthday and glad you had a good camping trip. I am glad the heat has let up a little.
We just found what looks like the same spider in our back porch – we are trying to find out what kind of spider. We leave in Albuquerque
After doing a little more research, I wonder if this might be a variety of wolf spider, with spiderlings on her back.
My shot is a little out of focus, here’s a better close-up from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lycosidae_female_carrying_young.jpg
Caught this huge spider tonight! It is lumpy and distorted and after finding this web sight, I checked my spider and found that TWO baby spiders were wandering around with the Mother Spider. A wolf spider for sure! Freeky and cool at the same time.