When a male wolf spider finds a female he will perform a courtship dance involving waving his front legs and vibrating his abdomen. Often the female will respond by attacking him. If he persists and is lucky he will be allowed to climb onto the female and mate with her.
After the female has constructed an egg sac she will attach it to her spinnerets at the tip of her abdomen and carry it around with her. Because the egg sac is not carried in her jaws she is free to continue hunting.
When the spiderlings have hatched they will climb onto the female’s back. She will discard the remains of the egg sac and continue hunting while carrying her babies. The spiderlings remain with their mother for about a week.
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The photograph of the female garden wolf spider was taken in my garden a couple days ago. It was sitting on a (once) transparent plastic side wall of a hot bed. The distance between adjacent yellow lines is 5 mm.
The photograph is not my best spider shot but one to be proud of. Although the wolf spider in my image is very abundant in my garden, it is always on the move and extremely camera shy.