Early last November, the Carolina Wolf Spider residing at
the edge of one of my vegetable garden beds, sealed off the entrance to her burrow in preparation for surviving the cold winter season. The earthen seal remained undisturbed through
the winter. On March 16 of this year,
the seal was removed and the burrow reopened.
Heavy snow flattened Butterflyweed stalks and effectively
erased signs of the burrow entrance. Had
I not placed a white marker stone a few inches from the burrow, I would have
had a hard time deciding just where I should be watching for the reappearance
of the burrow.
On March 21 I caught my first glimpse of the spider. I was happy to see that she had survived the
winter with no noticeable negative effects.
With no nearby standing cover, it’s hard to get close to the burrow
without scaring the spider back inside. The
spider is just about dead center in this shot.
Fortunately, the spider was quick to reemerge from its
burrow, so I had plenty of photo opportunities.
This spider is a female who would have been hatched in the
summer of 2013. She attained her adult
size last summer and should have mated sometime in the fall. That means she should be producing eggs this
spring that will hatch in early summer.
I’ll be keeping a close eye on her in hopes of witnessing some of the
young leaving the burrow later on.
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