268. Common Keeled Ground Spider

This is the most common and wide spread member of the Family Gnaphosidae. This is the family with the double exhaust pipes out the back, also known as spinnerets. Gnaphosa muscorum is rarely found in the open, but spends the day under logs and beneath the leaf litter, in moss and dirt, coming out at night to hunt. It is Holarctic in distribution, there being different subspecies as you circle the globe. 

Thanks (again!) to Darren and Claudia Copley for help with identification. 

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