He then picks up the sperm in the copulatory structure on his palp. The pedipalps hold the sperm until it is transferred to the female during copulation. The palp catches on the epigynum and a portion of the palp uncoils into the female's copulatory duct. At some point the sperm is transferred, but no one knows exactly when that is. In some cases, the male will have multiple insertions with his palp on one side and then switch to the other side and the other palp and again have multiple insertions.
Many wolf spiders have very long copulations with many many insertions.
It is not known why their copulations go for 3-4 or even 8 hours. How to see courtship and copulation in wolf spiders. The first step to seeing courtship and copulatory behavior is to make sure you have at least one mature male and one mature female of the same species. See part I of this guide for sexing spiders and for determining maturity. Generally, if you collect spiders from one locality and get both males and females, they are likely to be the same species.