You can tell they are (or "it is") male because of the enlarged palps, the mouthparts.
Autumn is the House Spider's mating season and the males start moving out from their hiding places in search of females.
I would love to shrink to spider size and watch the hunts and scavenging that goes on in my house of a night! We have countless wolf spiders in our garden, around our patio. They like to sun themselves. A couple have found their way into the house and made little silk funnels in dark corners.
We had one that lived just outside the shoe cupboard and one that lived under the tumble dryer. I would see them quite regularly waiting for their dinner to step onto their territory.
Late at night I've seen Silverfish racing across the floors and found a Daddy Long Legs Spider carrying a dead one up a wall the other week! It made me think of a scavenging hyena. After all, Daddy Long Leg Spiders are scavengers too.
Can you imagine what it must be like at night, like a Kenyan desert plain, an epic of life and death! I'd love to see it.
