Wolf spider

How to recognise it

These are the features that identify a wolf spider. Each one is described in words so the identification works without the diagram.

1. Eight eyes in three rows, with two very large forward-facing eyes that reflect light brightly under a torch. A recluse has six eyes in three pairs and no eyeshine.
2. Robust, hairy, and often boldly patterned with stripes or chevrons; a recluse is uniformly coloured and not hairy.
3. Legs are spiny and often banded, whereas recluse legs are smooth and uniform.
4. Large at 10 to 35 mm and fast-moving on the ground; they build no capture web.

What it leaves behind

• Spiders running across floors, especially at night and in autumn as they move indoors.
• Females carrying a round egg sac attached to the spinnerets, or carrying spiderlings on the back — behaviour no other common spider shows.

Why an infestation persists

Active hunters that pursue prey rather than building webs, so their presence indoors reflects available insect prey and easy entry at floor level rather than an established colony. They bite only defensively and are not medically significant.

Where it occurs

Throughout the United States.

Where to look for it

• At floor level along skirting, under furniture, and in garages — these are hunters, not web builders.
• Beneath door thresholds and around any gap at grade, which is how they enter.
• Under stones, timber, and ground cover outdoors close to the building.
• With a torch at night on a lawn, where the large forward eyes produce a distinctive bright eyeshine.

When you see it, and why

Indoor sightings peak in autumn as spiders move in ahead of cold weather, and again in spring. Because they hunt rather than build webs, their presence indoors reflects available insect prey and easy floor-level entry rather than anything about the room itself — which is why exterior lighting and door sweeps do more than anything applied indoors.

What getting the identification wrong costs you

This is the spider most often mistaken for a brown recluse, and the check is quick: wolf spiders are hairy with banded, spiny legs and eight eyes in three rows including two large forward-facing ones that shine under a torch. Recluses are smooth, uniformly coloured, with unbanded legs and six eyes. A female carrying an egg sac on her spinnerets, or spiderlings on her back, is a wolf spider and nothing else.

What a professional actually does

Rarely necessary. These are hunters that wander in at floor level, so a door sweep, sealing the gap at grade, and moving exterior lighting away from doorways address the actual route. A treatment applied indoors does nothing about the reason they are entering. If someone in the household is frightened of them, that is a real reason to act — but the action that works is exclusion, not spraying.