Remember Sept. 24, 2011 when you collected a female Trochosa and a mysterious Trochosa-like male at the "frog pond" near your home? I've revisited those specimens following an exceedingly valuable suggestion from a correspondent (whose name I've misplaced), indicating that the European species Trochosa ruricola, which was introduced in New England possibly as long ago as the 1960s, had been expanding its range westward with phenomenal rapidity. The suggestion was that your specimens (both sexes) might be ruricola. I compared them with European literature today, and sure enough! So you found the first Washington specimens of Trochosa ruricola. The female is quite similar to terricola but there are some color differences. The male has the absence of curled embolus-tip, presence of palpal claw, and presence of modified fang - classical ruricola.

Moved from Wolf Spiders.

Moved from Trochosa. From Rod Crawford: I finally examined your "Trochosa." The female actually is Trochosa terricola pratensis (I use the subspecies name tentatively because the status of terricola and pratensis is in flux - a new study by Dondale about to be published). The male was a huge surprise. Although the carapace looks just like a Trochosa, the palp is a match for Hogna frondicola - which is known from eastern but not yet western WA. The chelicerae match Hogna as well, but H. frondicola is not supposed to have a carapace like that! Who knows, maybe it's a new species. For the moment I'll call it "cf. frondicola".