The Wolf That Had 1600 Eyes

***Closer view here***

I was leaving my hotel this morning and encountered the largest spider and furriest I had ever seen. It was on the wall of the building in a very dark area and wasn't in a very easy spot to photograph.

I used a stick and coaxed this beast onto it and then relocated her to a sunny location. She seemed to settle down quite quickly and was able to get maybe a dozen or so pictures. She suddenly pulled back and then launched herself onto the ground.

When she landed (about 24 inches down from where I put her), I got quite a shock...

What I thought was "fur" was actually several hundred of her children layered and attached to her back - The jolt of her landing knocked most of the children free and then went scurrying in all directions including on my leg. I consider myself pretty resilient when it comes to getting freaked out. This pushed me just to my limit. I brushed the babies off and wanted to get more pictures. She wasn't going to have that - I got two pictures of her running and then she disappeared into the ground. From what I could tell, a good number of the babies followed her.

I learned that this spider is called a Wolf Spider (Lycosidae), has eight eyes, and is the only spider that carries it's egg sack. Once the babies hatch, they climb onto the mothers back where they remain until they are old enough to go out on their own. This spider generally produces 100 - 300 eggs. Based on how many babies scurried off her back, I'd say this one had about 200 on her... Click here to see some other photos of her and other critters on Flickr.

BTW - She looked MUCH smaller once the babies took off.