Variable wolf spider
Venator spenceri
The variable wolf spider is a brownish hunting spider from Australia. Like other wolf spiders, it does not build a web to catch food. Instead it runs after its prey on the ground.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Southeastern Australia, in dry eucalyptus woods
What does it eat?
It is a hunter. It chases and catches insects and other small creatures.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Variable wolf spider about 2 km/h (1.2 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Underneath, most of its belly is covered by a big black patch.
2
Spiders in its group are 9 to 22 millimetres long, so they are medium-sized wolf spiders.
3
It lives only in Australia, in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
you asked
Most asked questions about Variable wolf spider
?Where does the variable wolf spider live?
In southeastern Australia, mostly in dry eucalyptus woods.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Venator spenceri
- Named by
- Hogg, 1900
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Lycosidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Lycosidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Venator spenceri (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by tjeales. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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