Hoping you’re not freaked out by this photo. I had to share this with you, a mother Wolf Spider (Lycosidae). AND those yellow-green dots on her back are her babies. If you look carefully at the image, you can actually see their legs.

The Wolf Spider is a different sort of mom, particularly in the spider world. She carries her eggs in a silken egg sac, attached on the spinnerets at the end of her abdomen. She goes about her normal hunting, while carrying the egg sac. Her abdomen is in a higher than normal position so she doesn’t drag and harm the eggs.

After those eggs hatch, she helps the babies out of the silken sac, and they climb onto her back, where they stay for as long as several weeks. They bring along the yolks from their eggs to eat as they are developing. If a spiderling falls off, mother spider will stop what she’s doing to rescue the little one.

There are 200 species of Wolf Spider in North America, and they all have these amazing moms.

The world of nature astounds me.

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