I apologize for the sub-optimal lighting in a slightly dark corner of my living room.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what this might be? The location is North Carolina, USA. I’m no expert, but looking around at some photos, my best guess might be a grass spider of the genus Agelenopsis. Hopefully this isn’t too mundane of a spider for this community.
The size I would estimate is around 15mm or so. Fortunately, they were a very cooperative photography subject and did not move while I went and grabbed a ruler for the last image below.
No, there aren’t.
Your map is simply wrong. They go as far north as Wisconsin.
It’s possible for some individual specimens to hitch a ride outside of their native distributions, but those finds will be rather rare.
It is not “my map.” It is a map of rigorous sampled field driven study from entomologists throughout the country.