Spider in a quarter-sized hole - ID?

[applestar]

I found a spider in my garden (SFH). At first all I saw was the hole and a lump of sandy-dirt that moved. Then when I kept weeding, the lump moved down the hole, then turned around and came back up with a spider-head on it. Look at those wicked-looking fangs!

At first I thought “Trapdoor Spider”, but this seems a little small - hole diameter is about a quarter size... actually maybe smaller — nickel-size? The hole goes straight down. Plus there is no trap door. I couldn’t get a good focus on it, but it looks like sandy dirt piled up on the back of its abdomen? I don’t think these are eggs.... and it seems to prefer to stay butt-up in the hole to make it look like the hole is filled....

[applestar]

...Found images of wolf spider carrying babies on her back. Here’s one from BugGuide —

Wolf Spider with babies - BugGuide.Net
https://bugguide.net/node/view/528968


Oh, yeah, definitely can see the tiny baby legs even out of focus —



...so my revised interpretation of her behavior is that she was letting her babies get some fresh air and what sun there was available this cloudy morning, when she sensed disturbances through the ground vibrations, so she turned around to protect her babies by placing them deeper in the hole behind her, and readied wicked fangs to defend them.

When I stopped weeding and stayed still to take pictures, she decided it was safe again and turned around to face the babies up to the sky....

[Danausplexippus]

Neat! Thanks for sharing.