Little sun wolf
| Little sun wolf | ||||||||||||
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Small Sun Wolf ( Xerolycosa miniata ), female |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Xerolycosa miniata | ||||||||||||
| ( CL Koch , 1834) |
The small sun wolf or the small sun wolf spider ( Xerolycosa miniata ) is a species from the genus of the sun wolves ( Xerolycosa ) in the family of the wolf spiders (Lycosidae). The species inhabits open, sparsely vegetated, sandy areas and is widespread in Central Europe outside the mountains.
description
The little sun wolf is one of the smaller representatives of the wolf spiders. Males reach a body length of about 5 mm, females become about 7 mm long. She looks quite delicate overall.
Males and females are colored differently. The front body ( prosoma ) of the females is brown and shows a broad, whitish central stripe that is slightly indented in the middle. The back of the body ( opisthosoma ) is also brown. It shows a slight tip spot at the base and on the rear part weakly pronounced angular spots and whitish points at their ends.
The male is more contrasty and shows a sharper central stripe on the prosoma and a reddish colored opisthosoma.
In both sexes, the legs are only heavily hairy on the thighs and there are light and dark spots, the outer leg links are only sparsely hairy and single-colored, dark red-brown. An extensive loss of body hair is evidently typical of the species, so that the coloring characteristics described above are hardly recognizable. Often only the light central stripe of the prosoma is clearly preserved; if this is also lost, the animals appear monochrome and dark.
The closely related large sun wolf ( Xerolycosa nemoralis ), which is also widespread in Central Europe, is, according to its common name, somewhat larger than the small sun wolf and, in contrast to this, has a deep black, velvety background pattern on the prosoma. Other differences can only be determined by examining the genitals.
distribution and habitat
The lesser sun wolf inhabits the northwestern Palearctic from Ireland to Mongolia and northern China. The distribution area here includes large parts of the temperate zones. It occurs in almost all of Europe and is only absent in central and southern Italy and in southern Greece.
The species loves warmth and is bound to dry, sparsely vegetated and sandy biotopes. It populates above all dry sand and semi-arid grasslands with large areas of no vegetation. In Germany, the small sun wolf is largely restricted to the lowlands for climatic reasons and only occurs very rarely in higher altitudes.
Way of life
Like most wolf spiders, the small sun wolf is ground-dwelling and only becomes active at dusk. The day is apparently spent in hiding. Sexually mature animals can be found from May to September. Further information on the biology of the species is apparently hardly available so far.
Danger
The species is widespread and common in suitable habitats. In Germany it is classified as "safe" in the Red List .
Web links
Xerolycosa miniata in the World Spider Catalog
- Nature in NRW: Xerolycosa miniata
- http://araneae.nmbe.ch/Bestimmen/Familienschluessel/lycosidae/xerolycosa/Xerolycosa_sum.htm (Link not available) Wolfgang Nentwig, Ambros Hänggi, Christian Kropf, Theo Blick: Spiders of Central Europe - Identification key : genus Xerolycosa
literature
- Ralph Platen, Bodo von Broen, Andreas Herrmann, Ulrich M. Ratschker & Peter Sacher: Total species list and red list of spiders, harvestmen and pseudoscorpions of the state of Brandenburg (Arachnida: Araneae, Opiliones, Pseudoscorpiones) with information on frequency and ecology. Nature conservation and landscape management in Brandenburg 8, booklet 2 (supplement); 1999.