False Wolf Spider

[Olympusman]

This is a False Wolf Spider female (also known in the U.S. as a Wandering Spider or in Europe as a Walking Spider). This little girl had the poor taste to appear in my dining room. Like Wolf Spiders, they do not make webs but use their silk to make egg sacs which they carry around. They forage forest floors for their prey. They are of the family Ctenidae.



Swift 4X 0.10 160/.17 objective, Olumpus OM Zuiko 28mm f3.5 relay lens on an Olympus E-420
198 shots stacked on Zerene Stacker.
Physically, they look very much like Wolf Spiders.
You can tell the difference between an actual North American Wolf Spider by the eye arrangement.
An actuall Wolf Spider has a 4-2-2 arrangement whereas a False Wolf Spider has a 2-4-2 arrangement.



Same setup as above but the objective is an Olympus DPLAN 10X 0.25 160/.17

I haven't been very happy using a circular diffuser with my fiber optic gooseneck illuminator. The wrap around lighting makes the specular highlgihts (catchlights) on the eyes too big and Zerene Stacker has a hard time defining those highlights during the stack. So I fabricated a flat diffuser from the corner of a milk bottle take yields far smaller specular highlights.

[rjlittlefield]

Michael, you might be interested in the discussions at Reflections of hard and soft light in a spider's eye and the earlier Reflections of reality (in the eyes of a jumping spider).

All of your illumination systems are quite diffused compared to the "hard" light talked about there, but perhaps some of the underlying issues apply.

--Rik

[Olympusman]

Rik,
That's exctly what is going on. As I watch the frames on the right side of Zerene during the stacking process, I can see the catchlights becoming smaller but the stacked image stays with the larger out-of-focus catchlight and doesn't correct it.