Latin name: Lycosa sp.
Nancy found this amputee Wolf spider as she was digging up the front yardette last night. We're not sure if she caused the amputation or if it was pre-existing. In either case, we did not harm the spider further and after pestering it by taking photos of it we let it go. Hope to get some good photos of Wolf spiders with young on their backs soon.
By the way, I've come across what seems to be three species of Wolf spider in the past couple of weeks. They can be viewed and compared here. All of them seem to have a helmet-shaped cephalothorax and six eyes arranged in a rough v-shape with four small eyes in a row at the bottom of the v (although it's not obvious that there are four eyes in the picture posted here). Some Wolf spider photos I've seen have much larger main front eyes (the ones above the four bottom ones). Apparantly in the dark Wolf spider eyes reflect the light as well.
Another neat thing is that I took this picture at around eight o'clock at night. This worked partly because the sidewalk the spider was on is nicely reflective, but still. Love the summer.
