Spiders Anyone??

[Severus]

Oh I just really like spiders. I don't know if I would want to keep any of them, but I like to see them where they show up outside. I always try to take pictures of the notable ones around the farm.

This is a teeny little sucker who lives on one of the fence posts. He thinks he's tough. I try not to mess with him. You go to undo the latch and he runs out of his nook at your hand. I'm not prey, I swear! Hehe, he's about the size of my fingernails.

Here is a garden spider that lives in my sister's window. I think these guys are my favorite. For some reason, this is the only one that I have found this year. One year, I counted over twenty separate webs around the house. It must be because this year has been exceptionally dry that not many are around this year.

And here is a big fuzzy guy that I almost ran straight into last night(anyone hear the joke about how the funniest thing in the world is to see someone walk into a spiderweb?). He seemed comparable to a golf ball in size. He's a big one now, hah! Tonight when I took these pictures, I noticed about three other webs with smaller ones on them. The main body of this one's web was about two and a half feet and diameter and stretched probably twelve feet, from tree to fence. So cool! Sorry about the indistinguishable spider. I took it at night and the flash was screwing it up. Still a neat photo though.

I need to go take some more pictures and get some better ones of "Ol' Fuzzy". I noticed in some of the older trees we have some impressive tunnel spider webs, and there are a whole heck of a lot of gangly brown ones with stripes under logs.

Enjoy!

 

[Chris Driggers]

The one in the first photo is some type of jumping spider, cool little spiders. the last photo, I found some like that a couple of years ago, I kept her for a while and she laid an eggsac on a branch in her enclosure, then camoflauged it with some greenish brown webbing that was thicker and tougher with a different texture than normal. Very cool spiders, all of them.

 

[Peter Clausen]

The one in the middle is the Black and Yellow Argiope Argiope aurantia. They occur throughout the US. That's one of the nicer photos I've seen of one, including the trademark "crossing" in the web that is common with many orbweavers. Though I've seen them in both Oregon and Arizona, I've never managed to get a decent photo of one.

The web around your other orbweaver came into amazing focus as well! Thanks for sharing.

Peter

 

[Severus]

Thanks!

I found that the ones in the last photo take thier webs down during the day. None of them were out this morning when I went to check on them.

That picture of the...(copy & paste hehe) Argiope aurantia was a very tricky shot. I guess I was getting too close because the thing kept shaking the web. When I pulled out, it was fine. I had some better pictures from a couple years ago, actually, but they were on my other computer which I literally destroyed. I'll try to find the prints.

 

[Severus]

Okay, I just thought I'd share a few more that I found yesterday. Mom thought I was going insane.

Can you see the fly?

Ooh, I found another one!

And this is one I have never seen before. It is probably a third the size of the other garden spiders that I am familiar with.

Bad picture. It started to run before I could get the picture.

I have a couple other really neat pictures that I don't have up yet. Enjoy!