female adult wolf spider with brood/Hogna aspersa - Hogna aspersa

> does anyone know of a web s

> does anyone know of a web site which will allow species search
> based on coloration, size, markings?

"BugGuide". But unfortunately BG is not set up for key wording, so almost one does this and you are reduced to browsing (taxonomically, if you already have a hunch).

Identifying spiders by color and markings has its limits. It works well for a few species; genus is often possible, and almost always family, I believe. But just to give you an idea, published taxonomic references are not even included in the World Spider Catalog unless they include an image of the sex organs of at least one gender. And there is a great deal of variation, particularly from one specimen to the next.

-Kevin

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 5 June, 2008 - 7:32am

Wolf spider

family Lycosidae. Hard for me to tell how big her abdomen is when it's covered with multiple layers of spiderlings. :-)

The one 400 feet down the road is most likely a different one.

What say me? All cameras, monitors, LCD panels and computers record and display colors inaccurately unless properly calibrated.

If you like to be picky, use a grey-card reference during shooting so you can have a reference when processing, and purchase and use a colorimeter so you can calibrate the display on each machine you use for editing. I've used a $100 ColorVision Spyder (yes, Spyder :-) for several years now and have been happy with it. Search Amazon and you'll find a ColorVision Spyder2 for $126. It will probably fulfill most color needs.

FWIW, the colors here look fine on my calibrated display. No idea if they are accurate, but they look fine to me. I've seen much much worse.

… Jay Barnes, 3 June, 2008 - 11:01pm

colors

lots of savory information in but a few words, jay barnes.

i'll look into the spyder.

regarding 'grey reference': at camera i set white balance manually before a shoot using a white card. are you saying use a grey-colored object instead, or is your drift otherwise?

also: great that your monitor shows what seem to be true colors; but what colors are displayed?

imageminder

… imageminder, 3 June, 2008 - 11:53pm

White or grey,

either is fine. Even gray will work. :-) As long as there is no color tone present. So, a sheet of paper left in sunlight for an hour wouldn't be good.

Loading this image into CS2 I see more brown than grey. In a web browser, which doesn't recognize color profiles, the colors are slightly washed out. Configuring your camera to use sRGB color space instead of Adobe RGB will help remedy this minor difference.

Something else I just noticed, you probably shouldn't stop your lens down so far. Most SLR camera lenses are sharpest at around f/8, and at that focal length I would expect f/11 to provide enough depth-of-field for this subject. It's definitely worth your time to at least experiment; I suspect you are losing much detail due to diffraction.

… Jay Barnes, 4 June, 2008 - 8:33pm

color values

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again hello mr. barnes,

i'm still on a chase for species. several sites inform me that there are some 2.2 to 2.5k worldwide, 50-100 here in the united states.

i'll try a wider aperture and see what that yields.

as for sRGB and adobe: i've used both and for my purposes adobe renders truer values and requires less fiddling.

thanks!

imageminder

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… imageminder, 4 June, 2008 - 10:24pm

Yes

at last count, 2324 described species worldwide. About 240 in North America. I can't find a state list for Tennessee, but just to give you an idea, Ohio has 47 species, Alabama 80, Arkansas 63. A short list of state lists is located here

You won't get a positive ID to species from this photo unless the very few markings visible happen to be distinctive. A genus ID might not even be possible.

… Jay Barnes, 4 June, 2008 - 11:27pm

species

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so many species-incredible no?

well, having gone through lycosidae here at bug guide and considering the markings on the legs, the light-colored and thin stripe between the eyes and the 'filler' between the babies, i put this lady at Hogna aspersa.

(whew! says he after spending quite a stretch of time in front of his computer screen.)

thanks again mr. barnes.
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… imageminder, 5 June, 2008 - 1:32am