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Dolomedes tenebrosus
The spiders are fairly large, about the size of half a pinky, with 8 legs. I was able to observe these spiders in the fall, at the end of September 2017. After some research, I found that instead of spinning a web, the dark fishing spider overpowers its prey, when it comes within striking distance. This makes sense because living under rocks does not seem like a good area to spin webs.
The spiders I spotted were living under the rocks on a rocky beach, near the intertidal zone of Biddeford Pool, in Biddeford, Maine, United States.
Whenever I walked across the rocks the spiders would hide under the rocks, but if you stood still for a few minutes they would come back out. Also, I was very surprised to see spiders living at the beach, under rocks. I thought spiders don't like habitats with a high salinity.
Spotted on Sep 28, 2017
Submitted on Nov 28, 2017
3 Comments
By the way, welcome to Project Noah! :-)
I suspect these may actually be a species of Thinlegged Wolf Spider. https://bugguide.net/node/view/3389
Here is an additional link for the Dark Fishing Spider. You can see there are some physical differences: https://bugguide.net/node/view/2011
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