Tag: spiders

Spiders Redux

nephila clavipes
Nephila clavipes - photo by Stephen Friedt

A few posts ago I was writing about spiders. I just found out some info about the species that occurred in Florida that I was always running into. They were Nephila clavipes; a large brown and orange beast with interesting, featherlike tufts on their legs. These orb weaving spiders are quite familiar to people like myself that go walking in the woods with any regularity. Walking through one of their webs and getting their sticky center web deposited on your head or face is pretty darn unpleasant. You can see some nice pictures of them here.

I also mentioned in that previous post that I have seen lots of large spiders in Australia. It turns out the largest spider web I have ever seen, which I found in Eneabba (western Australia), was from the same genus as the Florida banana spiders. This is an even bigger orb weaver that goes by the name of Nephilus edulis. The web I saw had a strand that stretched over ten feet. The prey catching web was on one end, and was many feet wide, and at the other end of a long horizontal part of the web was a golden egg sac. The spider in the web was a fitting attendant. She too was quite large. You can read a little more about this spider’s striking web and the females size here.

Spiders and Fall

I found a large spider on my back deck last night. Bigger than any I have ever seen in the northeast. In the fall here most spiders are at the biggest, having had all summer to grow to full maturity. There are plenty of smaller spiders around here,  especially jumping spiders, but not an abundance of larger species that regularly show themselves.

I thought there were plenty of spiders in Florida. When I lived there for a few years and was working in the pine forests, I would regularly find orb weaving spiders all over the place. There was also lots of ground spiders running around. The worst was walking along and getting a hair net – a big round spider web wrapped around your head as you walked through it. Later in the year there was usually a big spider in the middle of it along with a nice sticky bulls eye in the center.

This was one of the common orb weaving spiders that try as I would, still would walk into and through in the woods in Florida.
This was one of the common orb weaving spiders I regularly encountered in Florida. Try as I would, I couldn't help but walk into and through one or two of these each time I was in the woods.

Australia though took the cake. I have never seen an abundance of spiders like I have there. It put Florida to shame.

I was glad to see the spider I did last night. I enjoyed gazing upon it and the memories of my past travels.

photo courtesy MrClean – Creative Commons license