Nursery Web Spider - Pisaurina sp. and Pisaurina mira
Family Pisauridae - Nursery Web and fishing spiders.
 
These spiders resemble the wolf spiders (Lycosidae), but have a different eye pattern. Pisaurids have their eyes arranged in 2 rows, the posterior row slightly recurved, the median eyes in the second row slighly (if any) larger than the others. (Wolf spiders have eyes arranged in 3 rows). The egg sac is carried by the female under her prosoma, held there by her chelicerae and pedipalps. Before the eggs hatch, the female attaches the sac to a plant and then builds a web  around it -- and stands guard nearby. The Pisaurids forage for their food and build webs only for protecting their young.

Pisaurina sp. -->
Female with egg sac

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Pisaurina mira -->
Very pregnant female

Some spiders in this family, particularly fishing spiders in the genus Dolomedes, are quite large and may have a legspread of 75 mm or more.The Dolomedes spiders live near water; they walk on the surface of water and dive underneath it to feed on aquatic insects and even small fish.


The Nursery Web Spider has a distinctive eye arrangement.



 


Nursery web filled with hundreds of spiderlings shortly after hatching. I could not see the momma spider anywhere.
 



 
              
 
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