He's definitely not a butterfly's friend, but since he's made his home on the side of my house I'm leaving him.
Check out this bad boy!
When I found him yesterday he was having a moth for lunch.
Ooooooooweeee!!! Those argiopes get big. Saw one at the ranch last weekend that measured at least four inches from leg tip to leg tip! UGH!!!
Found this guy (have no idea what kind it is) in my back yard last year...it had a web strung between my citrus trees...freaked me out when I walked into the web and saw this big bugger out of the corner of my eye! I knocked down the web but it was back again the next morning...so I got the camera and took a photo.
The belly of this one was about as big as a penny. SCARY!!! It also had several honey bees wrapped up for snacking :o) No wonder it was so big and healthy!
~ Cat
This message was edited Aug 21, 2006 11:43 PM
Eeeeewww!! Your's wins the ugly contest! Blech! I can't imagine how freaked out I would have been if I had walked anywhere near mine. I was close to him tho because I was cutting down a canna to his left and looked up and saw him. aaahhh!!
I have bunches of the hige Golden Silk Spiders. Hubbie had to get a hummer out of the web the other day. Said it was making all kinds of racket
Oh no! That must have been a big web to catch the hummer! (Is that what kind of spider I have?)
I had one other garden spider like this before when I first started gardening. I was excited and left him alone even tho he bothered everyone else. I had this thought tho...what if I go out and he's gone? Where will he be?! Will he be hiding and I accidentally find him?! And the NEXT day I went out and he was gone!! LOL I was scared to work in that bed for a while.
I sure don't want to run into this thing anywhere other than in plain sight. This bed is going to have to fend for itself and not get any pruning for a while if he disappears.
mine is a different one of the same species. They will make webs covering 3 to 5' area and live in family units with as many as 5 huge females and 5 little males
ooooh, families. don't like the sound of that. I know spiders are good, but they need to stay away from me.
I have no idea why mine isn't creeping me out because the others do. I guess because it's in my garden. lol
konketeblond--I just wanted to let you know that I've really enjoyed looking at the pictures of your spider. We had one of the same type--I guess they are called just "garden spider" or "golden garden spider"--but ours took up residence in my Juliet tomato plant, hence we named her "Juliet." We thought she was beautiful and she did very well in our tomatoes as she always seemed to have just caught something. She grew to quite a size very quickly, so much so that we could see her from about forty feet away though a second story window. Unfortunately one day we went out to visit her and she was gone. Hubby figured that if we could see her from such a distance most birds could as well. I was looking forward to babies next year, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be. I hope you enjoy yours!
Niere
Well thank you Niere! I'm glad you've enjoyed it. My dad came over today and he really wanted me to kill it. He hates spiders so I teased him and told him I was bringing it to his house.
Yours must have been huge to be able to see it that well! Maybe it just got so big and exploded. lol Mine looks like it's about to pop.
I'm not really excited about it having babies but I guess I will just let it do it's own thing. It is pretty well hidden behind a Crepe Myrtle so I'm not sure that birds will see it. I'm afraid to think how much bigger it will get!