We lived on this property for months before the wolf spider stuck its really, really ugly face out of the hole. Oh, we knew about the holes, all right, just not what made them.

What on Earth--what IN Earth--lives there? We wondered. The engineering of these holes appeared to be no mean feat in and of itself. Perfectly round with a small turret showing above ground and precision-bored sides, each burrow plunged almost straight down into the soil at various points on our several acres of southeastern Arizona desert land. These marvels of almost machined precision looked like they averaged about half an inch in diameter. A flashlight pointed downhole showed a slow, gentle curve that let the viewer see inside for perhaps four inches before disappearing around the corner.

A few days ago, one of those Mystery Tunnels surfaced a matter of inches away from the righthand tire on our cargo trailer, just a few feet away from our camp trailer's front door. We took note of the new tunnel's presence, and I even measured it once while taking snapshots with the digital camera.

One morning, Pam told me our neighbor was coming up to visit. "There's something in that hole," was how she put it. Indeed there was. The burrowing wolf spider version of the local Welcome Wagon had dropped by for a photo shoot.

Exactly which species our local residents may be, we have no idea. There are a LOT of varieties of these things, and it turns out that getting a positive identification isn't always that easy. We do think our Wolfie (as we began calling her) is probably a female. In some versions of burrowing wolf spiders, the male generally wanders around hunting all day while the female tends to stay in or near the "home hole". Wolfie could and did disappear downhole in a flash at the slightest alarm, and she never moved farther than the outside edge of the turret while we were watching and snapping pictures.

Besides being naturally fascinated with her "ugly beauty", we did want to know if Wolfie was poisonous. The answer: Yes. Furthermore, apparently all true spiders are venomous to one degree or another. One online source indicated that the venom injected in the course of a wolf spider bite will not kill a human being. I beg to differ. The same source indicated likewise for a brown recluse bite, and one of those did long term damage to my wife's right hand in 1999. Not the level of Death Incarnate associated with a five foot long diamondback rattlesnake, but not a friendly head butt from your favorite kitty cat, either.

The good news is that the wolf-named arachnid is not usually aggressive toward humans. The very good news. One look at just about any relevant photos should be enough to make us want to stay on the good side of our eight-legged brothers and sisters.

Weirdly enough, the entire burrow was seemingly abandoned less than twenty-four hours after our photo sessions were completed. Pam first noticed that she hadn't seen Wolfie lurking in the entrance to her burrow for some hours. Add a couple hours more, and she had me take a look at the tunnel with my own two eyes. Rather, she had me take a look at where the burrow used to be. It's undoubtedly still there, but you'd never know it. The entrance has been covered back over with what looks like the same material used to form the original turret. There's a tiny pinhole remaining, so maybe she is still there but laying eggs or something. Or maybe she's moved on to another location, closing her house door behind her and locking it against squatters and/or vandalism. I'm not able to snap a shot of that right now because the camera lens drive is jammed and the entire camera nonfunctional, but you wouldn't see much anyway.

On the other hand, if you do see a perfectly round hole going almost straight down into the ground with a little water dam, a little turret, built up around the entrance, you'll know what's going on: Your friendly local wolf silk spinner has decided to hang out in your vicinity for a while.