The silver-haired monster with the orange fangs hadn't been seen in Ohio in more than 60 years, and some people wondered if it had been lost forever. But this past weekend, a group of naturalists poking around the Edge of Appalachia preserve at the southern tip of Ohio peered into a burrow. There it was. Fine, slate-gray fur. Black and white stripes along its belly. As big as your palm.

The silver-haired monster with the orange fangs hadn�t been seen in Ohio in more than 60 years, and some people wondered if it had been lost forever.

But this past weekend, a group of naturalists poking around the Edge of Appalachia preserve at the southern tip of Ohio peered into a burrow.

There it was. Fine, slate-gray fur. Black and white stripes along its belly. As big as your palm.

Jim McCormac, one of the naturalists who found the spider�s burrow, said the group knew immediately what it had discovered: A Carolina wolf spider � Hogna carolinensis � the largest wolf spider in America.

�It�s the holy grail of arachnids,� said McCormac, who works for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Naturalists insist the spider is nothing to fear.

�He wasn�t aggressive at all,� McCormac said.

The group found the spider on Saturday during a trip to the Edge of Appalachia Preserve System, a nature preserve run by the Cincinnati Museum Center and the Nature Conservancy, in Adams County, about 110 miles south of Columbus.

They�d been looking for other spiders that live underground when McCormac noticed a burrow slightly larger than his thumb. He immediately thought of the Carolina wolf spider.

Two others in the group had brought a borescope, a thin, flexible tube that contains a tiny camera. When they sent it down into the hole, sure enough, the long-lost wolf spider was staring back at them on the monitor.

Wolf spiders are big, hairy and usually more prevalent in the South. The Carolina wolf spider, for example, is South Carolina�s state arachnid.

It�s not poisonous, but it does carry venom in its fangs to paralyze the insects it eats.

It has eight eyes, lined up in three rows, and can grow 3 to 4 inches from the tip of its foreleg to the tip of its hind leg.

John Howard, an Adams County resident and borescope enthusiast, said he suspects this spider was at the larger end of that scale.

�If you don�t like spiders, this thing is a real horror story,� Howard said. �But if you think they�re cool, this is really cool.�

larenschield@dispatch.com

@larenschield