Nursery
web spider
Nursery web spiders are
spiders
of the family Pisauridae. They resemble wolf spiders (family Lycosidae), but they
carry their egg sacks by means of their jaws and pedipalps. When the eggs are
about to hatch, a mother spider will build a nursery "tent", put her egg sack
inside, and mount guard outside. The wolf spiders have two very prominent eyes
in addition to the other six, but the eyes of the nursery web spiders are nearer
to the same size. Many species of nursery web spiders are able to walk on the
surface of still bodies of water, and may even dive beneath the surface for a
time to escape enemies. In escaping predators they may very well jump a distance
of five or six inches. They do not find it easy to make their way up extremely
smooth surfaces such as glass, however.