bigger spiders

[low_delta]

You may recall that I posted this photo of a pretty yellow garden spider, a few weeks ago.


You can't really tell how big it is, in any of the pictures, but you can definitely tell it's fatter. It's about 7/8 of an inch long, I think. This was last monday.

Early thursday, I noticed a bee or a yellow jacket in the web. There was another one in a different area of the garden. It wasn't quite as big. At one point, I was standing, looking at the area I was going to be working, and I noticed that the spider was gone. I looked back at my work, and moment later, I saw movement in the web. The spider was climbing back up its web, with a grasshopper half tied up, hanging by a rope. It was a very small grasshopper, but it was bigger than that spider. In late afternoon, I was working near that web, and I saw the spider walking across the dirt. I looked up, and saw a wasp buzzing around the empty shell of the grasshopper. The spider wandered for a bit, and settled on an iris that I had dug up. It sat for a while, with its face down, and butt up. It's abdomen had turned shiny silver. The next time I looked, it was gone, and I haven't seen it since.

The other one, meanwhile, had amassed its own collection of grasshopper corpses.

Click to embiggen.

These are called yellow garden spiders.



Here's another spider. This seems to be a banded garden spider.

Comments

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Interesting that the black seems to be the same, but the white has faded to yellow.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

If her abdomen had turned silver, she was probably out of her web looking for a place to lay/create her egg sack. The really big spiders lay eggs away from their webs. My yellow on the jasmine arbor got ett by birds.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Ah. I was wondering if it was going to molt, after that big meal.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Could be.. but from what I have seen by watching the spiders around here, they generally molt on the web.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I believe you!

Look at this little buggar:

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

These are starting to irritate the wad out of me, they are everywhere, in different colors, and they like to build the webs at FACE LEVEL.. the only reason I see them is the dashes they put around the edges of the web.. the are freekee looking... no? *grin*

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Oh.. and if you get a chance to see them molt.. it is really interesting. When I allowed that huge banana spider to live outside of my kitchen window a few years back, I thought I was watching two spiders fighting.. until she FINALLY got out of the exoskeleton and it dried and she wadded it up and tossed it out of the web. It takes a while for them to molt.. but well worth the time to watch it. Oh and one other thing, with that banana spider (and I have seen it with black widows too) the female was as big as my hand, but the males (the one in front of the window had three males living on the outer edges of her web) were no bigger than gnats.

Re: Look at this little buggar:

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Is that an orb weaver (http://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Spiny-Backed-Orb-Weaver)? Looks like a turtle.

We've got quite a few spiders at face level, in the tomatoes and asparagus. That is, face level when you bend over to reach for a 'mater. They're not very big, and spotted brown/white camouflage.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Oh, and that's one more reason I like living in the north. There aren't any spiders as big as my hand!

Re: Look at this little buggar:

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Looks like it. I have one in the front with those orange horns, and one in the back over the capture (water) bin with blue horns.. then the one in between the sycamore and sweetgum... has black horns.. that is the one pictured btw.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

yeah... I am NOT liking that part down here either.

Re: Look at this little buggar:

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

It's funny you mentioned it. On that page, I only recognized three spiders. The two I've got, and the orb weaver. I saw that one in Hawaii, and sent the link to Cyn. And then you mentioned it. I thought it was an exotic Hawaiian jungle species. :-)

I couldn't get a good picture of that one, because it was very skittish. I couldn't get near it.

Re: Look at this little buggar:

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Funny, in the past week all of them have disappeared. Webs gone and everything. I never got a picture of the blue one, and didn't get a good picture of the one with orange horns in the front.