Yellow and Black Garden spider (Argiope aurantia) aka the Writing spider. She turned up outside our kitchen window this morning; fortunately I saw her before my Poor Wife dropped her morning coffee. She's about 2-1/2 inches long overall. I'm hoping for puppies.
at least it's nice and colorful and doesn't have the hourglass of death on its abdomen
ReplyDeleteI had one of those make it's web in the frame of my bicycle once. I had to seriously nerve myself up to tear it's web out. To this day, if someone says, "I saw a huge spider," I'll ask if it was yellow and black.
ReplyDeleteI had something similar size-wise last year in a window well, but it had ridges in its exoskeleton that reminded me of a Klingon forehead. Interesting colors too.
ReplyDelete"Life in the Undergrowth" spends a fair amount of time with one of these that's been parasitized by a grub. Yours looks quite healthy, though you might be more likely to get cubs.
ReplyDeleteIn the Eastern Caribbean there is a big, bright yellow hairy spider called a money spider. One day while I was living there my downstairs neighbor showed me one he had caught in a jar, just warning me, he said, to shake out my clothes before I put them on because he had found this one on the clothesline. I thanked him for the advice and promptly forgot it until about 20 minutes later when, dressed for work in freshly laundered clothes, I was talking to him at his door and felt something bite me (almost as intense as a bee sting) uh, rearward. I ran back upstairs, frantically unbuttoning and unzipping, and found, in my underwear, a big hairy yellow spider.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a beauty! It's true, when they're sizeable, you can't help feeling awed respect - and I'm sure those gorgeous markings are to ward off predators.
ReplyDeleteA teeny emerald green spider was most insistent last summer about building his/her web (I assume the males build too, at least in some species)between the bottom of our wall-attached mailbox and something or other that was leaning on the wall adjacent - where she was sure to be disturbed by the mailman's vibes daily. Took him/her a good 3/4 days to decide to go elsewhere.
If it's not too inquisitive, do you use a real, old-timey non-digital camera to take your beautiful outdoor pics? I started my first blog a little while ago and would like to post some of my own nature images. I take digital photos pretty well, but I get nostalgic for the classic technology sometimes.
At this very moment, we have one of these beauties just outside the door to our patio. Waiting. Very. Patiently.
ReplyDeleteWe have a similar species here in The Shenandoah Valley, VA. It creates a zig-zag down the center of it's web. A friend mentioned it was to break up the spiders shape which some insects can recognize and avoid.
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