Spider ID?

[It_lives!]

Hi, i was fixing up my A. gigas set up with leaves and i guess this was in the leaves b/c when i went to grab another handful, it was staring at me, nearly gave me a heart attack, lmao. I was thinking it was just a wolf spider but the color and the way it keeps its legs makes me think differently, any ideas? it keeps it's legs like 4 in the front and 4 in the back, and the middle there is just a space. it doesnt show it in the pic though...... Is it worth keeping or should i let it go?

 

[ranticalion]

Looks kinda like a spider I found in the woods around here sometime in the fall. It was on the ground among some dried up leaves. I'm not positive but I suspect that it might be this: http://bugguide.net/node/view/34590

Yours looks a bit lighter in the front though, so it might not be the same.

I'd keep it if I were you and had space, but I keep just about anything I find. It's fun to watch it hunt and eat. I love the way it pounces on anything that moves near it when it's hungry. It's even molted once in my care. It tends to keep it's legs like yours, 4 in front and 4 in back. I've been keeping mine in a small critter keeper with some sticks, moss, rocks, and other such things. It doesn't make many webs, just a few strands between sticks, and it doesn't seem to use them to catch food, but it rebuilds them every time I tear them down.

Here's a pic from before it molted:

 

[It_lives!]

it looks just like mine except for color, but then again mine is smaller so it may moult into that color, i am going to keep it! I got a gift card for the Craft store for X-mas and they have plasting container that i love to use to keep stuff in, i TRIED to give it a superworm b/c that is all that i have but i will get some mealworms tomorrow at the pet store, how big do you think it will get?

 

[ranticalion]

Not sure how big it'll get. When mine molted, the body didn't get much bigger, but the legs nearly doubled in length. I'd guess it has a BL of about .75 inches, and it's leg span is probably about 2.5-3 inches. I don't think it'll get much bigger, but you never know.

 

[cacoseraph]

color is generally a bad characteristic to use when "id'ing"

to get a spider down to family you need to look at the shape and location of its eyes

you can also tell a tiny bit about the spider's hunting habits from its eyes. typically wandering hunting spiders will have larger eyes, and at least two will face forward to provide stereoscopic vision. wolf spiders and jumping spiders are good examples of this. some cave spiders lack eyes completely. total web ambush spiders generally have smaller less acute eyes.

the leg shapes and positions can sometimes help, too. this spider looks like it has a fairly interesting leg setup so that and an eyeshot should give the more knowledgable folks a pretty good chance of id'ing family

cool looking spiders, which i could help more with the ID