Grass Spider

Outside our kitchen door, I stumbled upon this web. Usually I find grass spiders (Agelenopsis) in our Canyon Prince grass with tunnel webs looking like a thick gossamer funneling into a black hole.


I was surprised to find this enterprising grass spider using a vacant bolt hole as it's tunnel. The web is not particularly sticky.


When prey stumbles into the web, the grass spider darts out quickly to grab it and bring it back to it's hole. We searched all day for earwigs to feed to the spider. With our hot dry weather, our typically abundant earwig population was no where to be found.

Agelenopsis identified using the Audubon Society Pocket Guide: Insects and Spiders.