The prosoma is brown, with a bright median stripe, which has parallel margins with white hair.

[3] The spider lives in dry litter and bark in sunny coppiced areas or clearings in woods, on stony chalk grassland with a short sward, on burnt heathland (up to approximately four years after the heath has been burnt) or bare patches of ground in older heathland.

X. nemoralis has occurred in large numbers in sparsely vegetated man-made sites, such as railway ballast, almost to the exclusion of other wolf-spiders.

[4] In mainland Europe, it can be found on the sunny edges of coniferous forest up to 1800 m above sea level.

[4] X. nemoralis is widely distributed in Europe from south eastern England[4] east to Russia.