Late Spring Snow

It felt quite spring-like last Sunday when I visited the south side of the berm; the ground had thawed; the tiny wolf spiders were scurrying through the long grass, and the buds on the silver maples were swelling. But yesterday, winter had one last encore.

Thin legged wolf spiders

Here is a closeup of one of the common small brown spiders scurrying over the grass. I believe it is a type of wolf spider of the genus pardosa, pardosa moesta being the most likely in the bugguide.net. These little guys, are about 6mm long and according to the info are spiders who do not spin nets. Instead they hunt for food through the long grass. Female wolf spiders carry their egg sack as they hunt and when the eggs hatch they let their offspring ride the back of their abdomen until they are old enough to fend for themselves(See Spiders of Ontario).

One mystery is where all these small spiders spend the winter that they are so ready at the first warm day in spring to go out hunting.