Fat spider ID!

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_Amber_ Eye, Suffolk, United Kingdom Sep 25, 2013

Hello, this was probably about 20 years ago now, but I have never been able to find a picture of a spider I once found in an old barn on a farm near our house! Its body was huge, that's what first drew my attention to it. It was round (not flat) it had short legs, but it's body must have been about 3 cm across. I managed to get it out of the web (sorry, can't remember what the web was like) and it was a slow and clumsy spider. I was scared as it was so fat, and I'd never seen one with such a huge body! I slowly dared to put it on my sleeve so I could take it home to show my family. If I remember correctly, it had purple and green markings on it's body. My neighbour said careful it will give me a nip, which panicked me and I flung it off, but I have never forgotten this big bodied spider, and never found a pic similar. Any ideas? This was in Suffolk, East Anglia! The only spiders which remind me of it are those orb web ones you get in your garden, that was almost it's shape, but they are far too small and brown.

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kwanjin (Zone 7a) Sep 25, 2013

Size alone makes me think Orb Weaver. Most have very large bodies and some can be very colorful. Try starting there or wait for our resident expert for more precise ID.

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Flapdoodle Minot, ND Sep 25, 2013

Undoubtedly an orb weaver, but there are no British spiders that I know of having a body width of 3 cm; anything over 1.5 cm would be remarkable. That aside, it might have been a very gravid Araneus quadratus - http://wiki.britishspiders.org.uk/index.php5?title=Araneus_quadratus

This message was edited Sep 25, 2013 7:43 PM

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