Male Nusery Web Spider

[wildmanofthewoods]

Here's a Nursery Web Spider i photographed Thursday am. He looks very different to the ones i usually see, is he a different species? Are there more than one?
He is obviously a male as we can see his palps, but i was surprised how large he was, as big, if not bigger than the females. I thought the males were usually alot smaller than the females, if this is the case i'm not going back, i don't fancy bumping in to his missis

[Venger]

No, we only have one Pisaura species, but their marking are very variable.
Depends on how big the females were :P
They both range between 9-15mm for male and 12-15mm for female, maybe you just have smaller females around.

[wildmanofthewoods]

Many thanks Venger, i see loads of females this time of year but this male is the first i've ever seen with theses markings so i was chuffed to bits, and he was very well behaved when i took his picture usually they seem to drop into the vegetation at the first sign of disturbance.

[demicav]

Gorgeous photo.

[wildmanofthewoods]

Thanks Demicav, its the first time i've had a spider look straight at the camera and say cheese when i asked him too