''Alopecosa accentuata'' is a species of

wolf spider Wolf spiders are members of the family Lycosidae (). They are robust and agile hunters with excellent eyesight. They live mostly in solitude, hunt alone, and do not spin webs. Some are opportunistic hunters, pouncing upon prey as they find it or ...

found commonly in open habitats throughout continental

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

with a reported

palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

distribution. The female has a body length (excluding legs) of up to 12 mm, the male is rather smaller at up to 9 mm. The name was at one time treated as a ''

nomen dubium In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application. Zoology In case of a ''nomen dubium'' it may be impossible to determine whether a s ...

'', but is now considered the correct name of ''Alopecosa barbipes''.

Description

The female has a dark brown

carapace A carapace is a Dorsum (biology), dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tor ...

with an irregular pale central stripe and white marks at the sides of the eyes. The

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the torso. ...

also has a pale central band, interrupted by dark chevrons. The femora are conspicuously banded white but the rest of the leg is usually dark. The male is generally similar in appearance except that the legs are usually all dark and it sometimes has a covering of fine white hairs over the entire body. The female matures in the autumn and overwinters as an adult, the male not becoming mature until the spring, when mating takes place.

References

* Guide to Spiders of Britain and Northern Europe, Dick Jones (1983, reprinted 1989) accentuata Spiders of Europe Spiders described in 1817 Palearctic spiders {{Lycosidae-stub