CLOSED: CLOSED: What kind of spider is this?

Sorry that I don't have a camera. I have been looking for the name for a few years now and still can't find it. I hope you can help.
I'm in South Central Missouri, Ozark Mountains, glade/forest
It is our "woodland" tarantula sized, but the colors are wrong for the ones that are in the books/websites I've hunted in. It is black with horizontal white or yellow stripes on the legs. Not timid, but not aggressive. It will move about to keep an eye on you when you are in it's area. Will not run and hide.

It could be either a large wolf spider (family Lycosidae - see http://www.life.uiuc.edu/ib/109/Insect%20rearing/photos/wolf%20spider.jpg) or a fishing/dock spider (family Pisauridae - see http://www.canadianarachnology.org/data/spiders/19664).

No, it is some kind of woodland tarantula. These are not small or narrow, though the legs are not as fat as the ones in Arizona. It was hairy/but shiny on the hind end, which was as big as the end segment of my thumb. The legs were black with bright banding. I stared at it many times through the years, I still can't say if there were yellow lines below the white bands - it just seemed like there were....
Thank you for your help

Couldn't it have been an escapee ?

Would it have survived our winters here? They have been been very mild, except for a week here or there. It seems to either near the very large groundhog's tunnel or a shed that gets afternoon sun in the winter. If it is the only one, that would explain how it looks a little bigger every year. If it is an escapee, I live in a military community, with neighbors from all over the world and there is a pet shop within a half a mile of here (she has never advertised that she has spiders, but she might have them).

The behavior you describe does not sound typical of tarantulas, as their eyesight is very poor, and not at all adapted to tracking moving objects. If you were very close to it, it might be able to tell that there was a large object in its vicinity, and perhaps either would turn in that direction or flee. Wolf spiders, on the other hand, have excellent (for spiders) eyesight, and seem quite aware of their surroundings. Please bear in mind that some large wolf spiders can be quite plump in appearance - see http://bugguide.net/node/view/135424/bgimage for an example - and that the tarantula species native to Missouri (Aphonopelma hentzi) lacks leg bands (see http://www.spidy.goliathus.com/foto/a_hentzi_m_sub.jpg). Other (but less likely) possibilities include the tarantula-like purseweb spiders in the family Atypidae - see http://www.dpughphoto.com/images/purseweb%20spider%20eno%20ff%2052706.JPG and http://www.americanarachnology.org/HiResGallery/myg_sphodros.html for example, and trapdoor spiders (family Ctenizidae) - see http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/color/trapdoor.jpg for an example.

I'm going to mark this as solved. Tho' I don't know exactly what it is, I am real close to saying that it is a trapdoor or exotic escapee. I now have a whole lot more information to help me look for it, just knowing that I do not need to confine myself to the Missouri spiders will help me answer it eventually.

the spider is usually within 3-4 feet when I first notice it. (weedwacking or weeding the forest edge of the yard). I see it after I have "done" an area - I am looking for the snakes that live here, so I am always looking at where I just finished. After I move away, maybe 5-8 feet, it dissapears.

A question: Do spiders have individual variations in color? Could this one be black rather than rust/brown like the local population of large spiders that it may actually be one of?

Yes indeed, many spider species can exhibit considerable variation in both background color and color pattern. This just adds to the joy of trying to identify some species from a single image!

So it is most probably just a color variation in the normal Ozark spider. That is a lot easier to understand, since it looks so much like the local tarantula. That black color threw me completely off track.
Thank you so very much,
Nan