It’s amazing what you can find when you’re crawling around on the ground…

A wolf spider stares at me as I take its (her?) photo. The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.  The leg span of this spider was only about 1.5 inches.  Certainly not the biggest I’ve seen, but plenty big to intimidate people who are already squeamish about arachnids!

As I was on my knees counting plants inside a square meter plot frame last week, this little (big?) wolf spider came crawling out of the litter.  I managed to corral it into the handy little ziplock bag I carry for just such emergencies, and a half hour later when I returned to my truck, I let it back out to see if it would pose for photos.  Not having my wheelbarrow photo studio handy, I had to make do with just blocking its repeated escape attempts with my hand until it got fed up and decided to sit still and consider its next move.  It gave me about 30 seconds to squeeze off a few shots. 

Then it dashed off again, and I let it go.  I had plants to count, and the spider had a meal to find.