spider?

jnich005

jnich005

Joined
Jan 8, 2010
Messages
298
Anybody know what kind of spider this is? We don't see big-uns like this around here very often.


S5030062.jpg
 
That looks like a Black and Yellow Argiope (Argiope aurantia). They are fairly common in New England gardens.
 
We get those down here in the 'Noke all the time. They typically make webs over our azaleas and usually this time of year through the first frost.

My kids call them summer spiders.

Hows that for scientific? :)

Professor.
 
I have always heard them referred to as garden spiders. I think they are some sort of orb weaver. As a kid I would find grasshoppers to throw into their webs. They are lightning quick to jump on a prey item.
 
zrfunited said:
I have always heard them referred to as garden spiders. I think they are some sort of orb weaver. As a kid I would find grasshoppers to throw into their webs. They are lightning quick to jump on a prey item.
Click to expand...

I would have never thought they were quick, this guy hasn't moved an inch in three days.

Thanks for the replies everyone
 
I always called them a garden spider. Want to have some fun? Take a blade of grass and touch the web under its abdomen. Sometimes after they realize its not edible, they will start kicking their legs and the whole web will bounce back and forth as they try to dislodge it. They cant see very good and wont know its you poking it.
 
ditto to zrfunited we call them garden spiders & they get pretty big. can give a stout harmless bite. throw a bug in the web & you will see evolution in action.
dennis
 
Golden silk orb-weaver aka Banana spider in my neck of the woods. These have a very thick yellow web that is very strong. They get to be very big too. The thing I hate about them is they love to put their webs at head height across trails. Lovely fun walking into one of these at night and have that bis a$$ spider plastered to your face.
As a kid we used to shoot them with bb guns.
 
I used to see these in my dads garden, hence I always called them garden spiders. We lived in the burbs/country, so to see one of these appear overnight it seems was kinda creepy. They were always big too. A good 4" long or more. :eek: I hate all the creepy crawley things. Snakes, Bats, Rats, Mice, Spiders....:eek:
 
Ones like that here we just call garden spiders as well. Have 2 on my patio that make webs at dark and are gone by morning. Me and the boy like watchin em weave the webs
 
I've always called 'em Garden Spiders, too. We had a bunch on a little horse ranch I lived on a few years ago. They'd build a web anywhere. On the house. On the fence. In the open bed of my truck. I once had one that made the 80-mile round trip drive to & from work with me for four or five days straight. They'd build their webs on the barb wire fence behind my house, and you could just watch them day by day sit... and grow... and sit... and sit... and grow. They'd go from a leg span of a couple of inches to four or five inches before too long.
 
It's a banana spider. Golden Orb Weavers are a particular type of banana spider, and their abdomen looks a bit different from that.

IIRC they are the largest spiders indigenous to N America outside of the tarantula family.
They have a horrendous bite -- imagine taking a pair of wire clippers and digging them into your skin and snipping -- that's about what it feels like.

They are FAST when going after prey. They are also fast building their webs.

I had one pop up going from my house to a birch tree in the front yard -- a good 20-25 feet, two feet tall, at head height. And it popped up over night. I was walking Chopper, and he was digging at something and I was paying attention to him and walked right into it. If you can imagine a pair of women's stockings stretched from the house to the tree, the web felt that strong. I caught some motion off to my left, looked up and the thing from IT was bearing down on me at mach 2. I pointed my knife at her (I think it was my AK bowie) and said I'm too big for you." She stopped, raised her front legs and spread her fangs. Women. :rolleyes:

That's another thing: for insects and arachnids, the big, colorful ones are the FEMALES. The male banana spider is a little wider in leg span than a quarter, whereas the females have a leg span close to the size of my palm, which is 4.25 or so inches across.

Best thing about these spiders is they don't really mess with you if you leave them alone. I love having them around because I noticed a marked decline in insect activity in my yard when they move in.

I never got a picture of it, but we have a pretty freaky sight along one of the roads here. Driving along the road, you look up and see spider webs strung from the top to the bottom power line. And it's MILES of road where these webs are right next to each other like a huge net. It's pretty cool.
 
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