Enormous unidentified spider

[Suze]

Took these photos today, be sure and view the full-sized shots for maximum effect. Body is at least two inches long, span with legs is close to four inches long and three inches wide. Looks like it may be missing a leg because I only count seven, or it might just be the camera angle.


Click for Larger Size



Click for Larger Size

[mcsee]

Suze - It does look like it's lost a leg, as you can see a stump in the bottom photo. I hope this one wasn't inside your home as it may have made a nest to hide out somewhere warm for your Fall/Winter.

[Suze]

I have an ID now. Argiope aurantia, commonly known as a Yellow Garden Spider (sometimes known as a Black and Yellow Garden Spider, American Garden Spider, Scribbler, or Writer Spider).

Males are much smaller than the females (less than an inch long), so this one is definitely a female. Females are generally up to 3 to 3.5 inches long, so this one is on the large side. I just looked again, and yes, it really is close to four inches long. They are non-poisonous.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/69/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_garden_spider

[Rena]

I tried to google images but only found one that looked like it called a "Garden spider" I need to Phone a friend who LOVES SPIDERS

[strmywthr3]

Cool! I had several of them last year, but couldn't find any this year. great spider to have around....as long as it stays outside!

great photos!!!

[tomatoaddict]

Okay, the spider is freaking me out.

[Suze]

Originally Posted by tomatoaddict

Okay, the spider is freaking me out.

Actually, I think she's cool, and hope she'll stick around. I need to give her a name. Did you see all the hairs on her legs, was that what freaked you out, Terry?

I was kind of sad when I read this part in wikipedia:

She lays her eggs at night on a sheet of silken material, then covers them with another layer of silk, then a protective brownish silk. She then uses her legs to form the sheet into a ball with an upturned neck. Egg sacs range from 5/8" to 1" in diameter. She often suspends the egg sac right on her web, near the center where she spends most of her time. Each spider produces from one to four sacs with perhaps over a thousand eggs inside each. She guards the eggs against predation as long as she is able. However, as the weather cools, she becomes more frail, and dies around the time of the first hard frost.

Awwww.

[obispo45]

OMG!!!! First off, great pics, those are really wonderful. Nice composition, scale, gorgeous colors the whole ball of wax. Secondly, I don't know why but I'm borderline deathly frightened of spiders. If I saw that big one in my garden I'd probably just keel over!! Snakes and most other creepy crawlies I can deal w/ just fine. OK....somebody get some snake pictures going STAT!!! I'm going to have a bad case of the heebeegeebees all night long...THANKS ALOT!! LOL.

[gdionelli]

I really admire spiders. They seem to do the impossible when they weave their webs, and if you knock a web down the spider just patiently sets about creating a new one. Every year about this time we end up with at least one spectacular web making it impossible to go in or out of a door, and, softies that we are, we leave it be and use a different door.

[dcarch]

Originally Posted by Suze

-----------------They are non-poisonous.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/69/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_garden_spider

I thought very few spiders are non-poisonous.

dcarch

[gdionelli]

From the Spider Myths page of the Burke Museum:

Myth:Some spiders are poisonous and others are not.
Fact: There are two problems with this idea: a technicality, and a set of false assumptions. First, the technicality. "Poisonous" and "venomous" are two different things. Offhand, I can't think of any spider that is poisonous (harmful to eat, breathe or touch). Mushrooms are sometimes poisonous, but spiders are not; they are venomous (their toxins are proteins and work by being injected, not by being eaten).

Second, we have a set of false assumptions about spider venoms. Almost all spiders are venomous; only two small families lack venom glands. The purpose of spider venom is to subdue the spider's prey, almost always insects. In brief, it's an insecticide. Spider venom does not exist to harm creatures, like humans, which are too large for spiders to eat, and in nearly all cases has little if any effect on humans.

A minority of spider species have venom that can cause localized pain in humans, like the venom of bees or wasps. (Bees and wasps are far more dangerous than spiders, however; wasps cause many deaths annually). Of around 50,000 spider species known, only about 25 (1/20 of 1%) have venom capable of causing illness in humans, to a greater or lesser extent. In any given locality you can expect to find from zero to (at most) three such species. These species are called "medically significant" spiders.

"Is it poisonous" or "is it venomous?" is not a meaningful question.

http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseu...dangerous.html

[Suze]

Originally Posted by dcarch

I thought very few spiders are non-poisonous.

Harmless would have been a more accurate statement, as gdionelli points out.

Originally Posted by gdionelli

From the Spider Myths page of the Burke Museum:
[...]Of around 50,000 spider species known, only about 25 (1/20 of 1%) have venom capable of causing illness in humans, to a greater or lesser extent. In any given locality you can expect to find from zero to (at most) three such species. These species are called "medically significant" spiders.

"Is it poisonous" or "is it venomous?" is not a meaningful question.

[dcarch]

Female spiders are not very romantic.

dcarch

[Worth1]

Hi Suze that spider of yours is in a family called orb weavers.
I have about 50 of that kind at the house and about 15 species of spiders all together.
I like to go out in the woods at night and in the yard and see all of the spiders I have.
I just can’t tell you guys how much I love spiders and how much good they do.

The only harmful spiders I have are Brown Recluse and Black Widow.
They are the only spiders I will kill.
Neither of the two are orb weavers.
Orb weavers are cool to watch make their web; you should watch them some time.

Then there is the jumping spider it just runs around and hunts down its prey like a wolf.
As it does this it will string a filament behind it so if it falls it will climb back up.
I have about 5 kinds of jumping spiders at home and there must be a hundred or more of them.

When I was a kid a little black fuzzy spider would come down the wall and hang out next to my plate like a dog and I would feed it tiny morsels of meat.
This is no joke it really happened.

Then there were the pet King Snakes I would send down the rat and mouse holes in the barn.
I will reach down and pick up a snake faster than most people can scream, ‘snake.

To get a good spider out of the house I will let the thing crawl on my hand and take it outside.

Well enough said, as you all can see I love wildlife and have missed my calling, to bad.

Worth

[Suze]

Hi, Worth, I am becoming quite fond of spiders myself. And that's good because we have tons of them here.

A lot of them in my backyard are these little ones (1/3 - 1/2 inch) that are kind of shaped like crabs without the front claws (stocky wide body). They are black, some with yellow or orange backs. A few have a little white on them instead. Do you know what kind these are? They can spin a huge web.