i just bought a house that has been vacant for 3 months. while cleaning up the mess, the old tenants left, i picked up a grocery bag and found this guy undrneath. i stepped back REAL QUICK and spotted another about the same size about 2 feet away. his body is about 2.5" - 3" long.
sorry for the iphone pic.
i live in las vegas if that helps any.
This looks like a fine, fat, female wolf spider (family Lycosidae). large ones can give you a painful bite if mishandled, but they otherwise are harmless to humans. With the exception of funnel-web wolf spiders (Sosippus spp.), they are active hunters that go searching for prey rather than constructing a capture web.
