Consider-the-Lilies Web Gallery
Common Garden Spider
Entomologists divide spiders as hunters into two broad categories: trappers and ambushers. Some ambushers prowl about on the ground or on vegetation and sneak up on their prey; others like the Crab Spider, an interesting color-changing spider that I found for the first time this season, sit very still in a flower blossom and wait for visitors.
Trapper spiders, such as this variety and others, including the Cross Orb-weaver , the Spiny-bellied Orbweaver, and the Filmy Dome varieties, spin specialized webs in which they capture unwary prey.
Of all those who spin an orb web, this common variety takes the prize for me; the beautiful appearance of its large body and the precision of its web combine to make it a most interesting creature. I have found more than a dozen of their large silken traps on my property this season. Although seemingly delicate, the webs, with some repairs from the resident female, held up well to several weeks of exposure to wind and rain.
I have recorded two members of the Garden Spider or Argiope family so far.
(The entomological name for this family refers to the characteristically light-colored face or cephalothorax: the closest that any part of the spider can be called a "face.")
This is the Yellow Garden Spider (A. auranita = yellow, golden), which is the larger of the two types; this specimen is about an inch long. It is less numerous than its close relative below.
The other species from this family I've been able to enjoy watching this season is the White-Backed Garden Spider or Banded Argiope.
A. trifasciata is perhaps the most numerous of any of the Orb Weaver spiders in my yard, especially in the 2006 season. That year I found its webs, which can be as large as a foot across, in literally scores of places around my property.
(Its scientific suffix, trifasciata, is a combination word formed from the Greek for many + bands.)
Spanning the gap between shrubs and trees, a few webs are as high as shoulder height; however, most are constructed about a foot or so above the ground.
Their size and the striped yellow back of this spider, centered in the orb of the web, make them hard to overlook.
Both types are found as shown with the female stationed at the center of the web, around the clock, ready to catch and package some prey that found itself ensnared.
Here is the Yellow with its quarry, a grasshopper, which is a common catch for both types, enshrouded in silk.
Like its cousin the White-Backed often finds that a grasshopper has gone one hop too far and is hanging helpless on the sticky strands of its web.
This 'hopper's fate is the same: rapid wrapping for spider dining later.
Another characteristic of Garden Spiders web, is the addition of a cross-hatching of silk, called a stabilmentum. See right.
This curious feature has probably led to this type being called Zipper,Tailor or Writing spiders in different locales.
(The purpose of the stabilmentum is not settled. Some scientists see it as a stabilizing addition, thus the name; others see it as a way to tie the web sections together mechanically so any vibrations from prey will be effectively telegraphed to the spider.
Thus far, the spiders haven't said, so until...)
As you can see above and below, the spiders stretch out their legs and grasp a different line in each claw. If anything moves they know about it.
You may have noticed that both of these types of spiders build their webs with a precise angle between the radiating main lines and the strengthening cross lines. They are all consistently organized and maintained in this form. They look like the stereotypical spider's web, don't they? (Image color shifted to emphasize web.)
Another
spider,
the Cross Orb Weaver
(Araneus diadematus), cousin to the Garden Spiders, has a different approach to web spinning.
This type constructs its webs, as
shown to the right, with irregular cross strands that break up the
spherical design of the webs, thus the Cross prefix
in its name.
It looks like it started in one direction, then changed its mind, and then again... One might conclude that the resulting web structure has had repairs over time, but the fresh webs have the same feature.
Male Garden Spiders don't seem to be around as much as the females. I haven't been able to determine why; perhaps they are killed off after mating. But, here are two, I presume, Yellows, visiting this web built in the midst of a zinnia bed.
The next day the web was completely gone: Whether these were marauders who killed the female and then ate the web—it has a high protein content and is recycled by several spider species, I've learned—or if something else happened?
???
Another mystery.
Question: Do we find the orb-web spiders on the top or bottom side of the web?
Click HERE to see the answer.
Any thoughts, pro or con? Why not drop me an anonymous note at the Comments page?
OR
Go back to the Main Directory to consider more lilies of the field.