Reply #3: Something was making very audible scratching sounds [View All]

[marzipanni]

between large vertical pieces of paper in a box where I worked. I thought the sound must be being made by a mouse, or a potato bug.

I carefully separated the paper and peered down... a big, beautiful spider with a 2+ inch legspan was clinging to one sheet. I slowly lifted the paper out, amazed that the spider seemed calm, and I was able to put it in a jar. I thought of it as a female, having heard they are often larger than males, and I was pretty sure it was a wolf spider so she got a temporary name, "Lupita".

I called the entomology department at the university nearby and described her to the professor, and he told me it did sound like a wolf spider and her normal lifestyle would be to make a hiding burrow in tall grass, and hunt bugs. I brought her home to show my husband and the kid next door, then took her to the nature reserve beside a creek the next morning on the way to work, and left her in the long grass.