Wolf Spider in Shower
I found this spider in the shower on September 24, 2022. Well, actually, not quite in the shower. It was just outside, right where the shower met the wall, on the caulk line.
This was a moderate-size spider, with a legspan about the width of my little fingernail, so it would just barely fit fully within the field of view of my macro lens on the 1:1 setting.
This is another case of excellent camouflage, but not in this place. On the ground, this spider would have been darned near invisible. But on the stark white bathroom wall? Not so great.
It took some maneuvering around to get a face shot, but once I did, the eyes were enough to identify it at least to the family level.
The two big eyes above a row of smaller eyes, on a spider of this build, is obviously a Wolf_spider, family Lycosidae.
After poring over the numerous generally sand-camouflaged wolf spiders on BugGuide, and considering the various range maps, I think this one is likely Pardosa xerampelina, a smallish northern species whose range runs from Maine across Canada, dipping down into the northern Midwest.
It was probably in the bathroom next to the shower because it was looking for water. Unlike the broadly similar-looking European House Spiders that we normally find in the house, wolf spiders aren’t really adapted to the house environment and are better off outdoors. So I got this one to crawl onto a piece of paper and took it outside. Where it presumably had a better time finding water and things to eat.
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In the shower for days and days? Well, he’s very clean, isn’t he?
https://youtu.be/4Nq-GyLrtHc?t=149