White-tailed Spider
Dorsal
Ellura
Tiger Wolf Spider
S2, Male, dorsal
 
                      
Tiger Wolf Spider (Hoggicosa castanea)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Spiders, Scorpions, Mites & Ticks (Arachnida)
Order: Spiders (Araneae)
Family: Wolf Spider (Lycosoidea: Lycosidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Tiger Wolf Spider (Hoggicosa castanea)
This Photo:     🔍S1, Male, dorsal🔎

Thank you Cael Gallery for identifying this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
S1, Male, was very large, ~20mm body, ~60-70mm legspan.
Because of the "Union Jack" like pattern, we previously thought it was a Tasmanicosa sp.
After Cael had I'd S3, we went looking for others we had photographed, finding S1 & S2. Cael agreed, but with S2 he said "A little pale but i think so".
We asked Cael why the examples on the internet looked so different and he said "Hoggicosa are very sexually dimorphic so it's hard to give you any tips that apply to males and females. With H. castanea males have like a really muted version of the female's patterns and they lack the orange colour too."
When we comment on the fact we had only seen males, Cael said "You probably haven't seen any female H. castanea because they live in lidded burrows".
Later, Cael gave another diagnostic tip "Hoggicosa don't have a pale median streak on the carapace or a white margin".

Copyright © 2020-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 01-Feb-2020
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.