Indiana Spiders

Welcome to Indiana spiders. With about four hundred documented spider species in the state, the introduction to Indiana spider identification begins with the basic reminder that some types of spiders are easy to identify. Other types of spiders, well, not so easy to identify.

The first section deals with some not so easy to identify spiders, wolf spiders and nursery web spiders. Typically the way females carry the egg sac serves to distinguish the two types of spiders. Female wolf spiders carry the egg sac on the bottom of the abdomen. Female nursery web spiders carry the egg sac in the mouth.

What happens when there are no egg sacs to help with ID? Well, because their bodies often change appearance to blend in with the environment, the number of brown to gray colored spiders makes for very confusing identification.

With few exceptions, it would be easy to confuse a variety of wolf spiders and some of the nursery web spider species.

Eye pattern represents the first spider identification clue when deciding between families. The picture at the top of the page, for example, shows a spider with two rows of eyes. That’s the basic form for members of the nursery web spider category.

The next picture shows an eye pattern of four eyes on the bottom row and two rows of two eyes each. That’s they typical eye pattern for wolf spiders.

Identifying wolf spiders by body pattern is almost a non-starter because most of the approximately two hundred and forty species look very similar. Their looks can also change over time.

Consider thin-legged wolf spiders, the most common group of wolf spiders. One might think that the presence of thin legs would be a good field identification clue.

Actually, another group of spiders, Acantholycosa, also has thin legs. The difference between the two is the number of tibial spines, or hair like protrusions from the tibia on the first leg.

Accurate identification of thin legged spiders requires the use of a macro lens to get a picture that shows the spines on the tibia.

Size might help with identification of some wolf spiders. Species in the Hogna and Tigrosa genera, expecially the females, have bodies between three-quarters of an inch and one and one-half inches.

They are the largest of the wolf spider species. The picture shows Hogna frondicola, an Indiana wolf spider species with no common name.

The following three pictures show similar sized spiders with muted color bodies. The easiest identification is that a brown wolf spider is pictured above.

Wolf spider with a gray body.

Banded Fishing Spider, member of the nursery web spider family.

Indiana spiders that fit into the common house spiders and common lawn and garden spiders category can be a bit easier to identify.

Most of the orb weaving spiders, crab spiders, lynx spiders and ground spiders that make their homes in the yard are fairly easy to identify.

Tallgrass Prairie Spiders

Tallgrass Prairie restoration efforts over the past couple of decades spurred ecosystem research that includes spider surveys. During the initial restoration phase, researchers suggested that spider diversity and density served as an indicator of relative prairie health. Spiders as predators help maintain an ecosystem balance of the prairie by preying on many of the leaf consuming anthropoids that also inhabit the prairie.

The checklist of Tallgrass Prairie spiders was created using the species presented in three separate research projects covering three separate tallgrass areas.

The Reed publication, Reed, Catherine. List of Insect Species which May Be Tallgrass Prairie Specialists Final Report to the USFWS Cooperating Agencies. July 1, 1996. , the earliest list, consisted of thirty five species that the author broadly labeled “may be prairie specialist”. It was derived from a literature review of the literature that included mentions of spiders in both the north and south tallgrass regions.

Jesús E. Gómez, Jenny Lohmiller and Anthony Joern 2016. Importance of vegetation structure to the assembly of an aerial web-building spider community in North American open grassland. Journal of Arachnology, 44(1): 28-35.
Spider survey at Flint Hills documented about one hundred different species collected over a three year time span using a vacuuming method.

Richard A. Bradley, Shauna L. Price, William L. Hickman, Robert A. Klips. Passive Re-colonization of the Spider Assemblage on an Ohio Restored Tall Grass Prairie Compared to Nearby Remnant Prairies and Old Fields. The Ohio Journal of Science. Vol. 120 No. 2 (2020)

Using both pit trap and sweeping capture methods, the authors documented 94 species. The author also notes, “in a separate investigation at the MCP site, a total of 1,646 individuals representing 143 species have been collected between 1988 and 2006 (unpublished data)”.

The large number of species in the checklist is more a function of differences in research questions and methodology than differences in spider species found in northern versus southern tallgrass prairies.

For example, the large number of ground spiders and wolf spiders documented in the Ohio study was a direct result of their pit trap methodology. Placing traps in the ground collects a diverse range of ground based spiders. The Flint Hills study focused on habitat diversity and the presence of orb weaving spiders. Under that research plan the authors orbweaving list of over two dozen species would be expected to surpass a study without such an emphasis.

A quick check of Bugguide also shows similar ranges for many of the orb weaving spiders. Taken together, the compiled checklist shows fairly robust spider diversity.

Tallgrass Prairie Spiders: Orb Weavers

Black-spotted Orbweaver

Black and Yellow Garden Spider

Lined Orbweaver with a nice view of the spider and stabilimentum

Marbled Orb weaver

Orchard Orb Weaver

Silver Long-Jawed Orb Weaver

Orb Weavers

Crab Spiders

The large number of species in the crab spider family Thomisidae along wide spread ranges for a subset of those species makes for a nice diversity of crab spiders in the Tallgrass Prairie ecosystem.

Synema parvulum

Green Crab Spider

Jumping Spiders

Phidippus cardinalis

Bold Jumper

Zebra Jumper

Phidippus pius female

Male Phidippus pius

Male White-cheeked Jumping spider ( Pelegrina proterva)

Female White-cheeked jumping spider. Note the lighter shade of the body.

Phidippus Clarus

Colonus peuperus

Colonus sylvanus

Jumping Spiders
Colonus puerperus
Colonus sylvanus
Eris aurantia
Eris flava
Habrocestum pulex
Habronattus calcaratus
Habronattus coecatus
Habronattus mexicanus
Habronattus rutherfordi
Habronattus tranquilus group
Hentzia mitrata
Hentzia palmarum
Maevia inclemens
Marpissa formosa
Marpissa lineata
Marpissa obtusa
Marpissa pikei
Metaphidippus arizonensis
Myrmarachne formicaria
Neon nellii
Paraphidippus aurantius?
Pelegrina galathea
Pelegrina proterva
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Wolf Spiders

Wetland Giant Wolf Spider ( Hogna helluo )

Lanceolate Wolf Spider

Lynx Spiders

Western Lynx Spider (Oxyopes scalaris ) pictured. Also includes Striped Lynx spider.