This evening, around twilight, my hubby (DeathLlama) and I were captivated watching two spiders weaving. One was a typical garden spider, but the other was the HUGEST thing I have ever seen weave a web. I really want to know what that behemoth is… After several searches in minimally informative sites(or overinformative sites–that still just didn’t provide the right info), I come to the Dopers. Any arachnid specialists out there?
Description: This spider appeared to be either an orb or crab spider–it had a very large and very round abdomen. Total size, without spreading out the legs, appeared to be about an inch long. Color was a very pale pink, peach, or yellow; the twilight lighting made that a bit difficult to discern. There were absolutely no marks on this spider–it was just pale throughout–except for a small dark dot on the underside of the abdomen. When observed, this spider was weaving a web a good 15 feet off the ground, between a tree branch and house awning, but it would go all the way to the ground to anchor it. Later in the evening, a second such spider was observed weaving maybe a foot away–we thought maybe they’re a breeding pair.
No markings? Well I’d normally guess Crab Spider as well, except that they’re generally ambush predators that hang out on flowers, not big web-weavers. So I’d rule that out and agree that what you almost certainly have is some sort of large Orb-Weaver ( family Araneidae ). Probably not an Argiope , though they are big, common, and showy, as I think they are all marked. More likely an Araneus. Perhaps Araneus gemma ( I can’t find a jpeg right now ).
Geography might help narrow it down - Where are you located ( in a general sense, a street address shouldn’t be necessary )?
Definitely not an Argiope, those are mostly black, average around 2-4 inches and have elaborate markings. The first spider sounds like one, especially if there’s a large silk zig-zag running through the middle of the web.
How big is the second spider’s web? Has it caught anything?
I don’t think his/her neighbor was setting up a web nearby for gettin’ it on. Spiders, like most human web designers, are notoriously anti-social.
Yes, I am in southern California, about 10 miles east of Pasadena. The Mystery Spider was observed in my front yard.
This spider bore little resemblance to an Arigiope. I’ve seen those around before, and though they are large, they are more long and lean–this monster probably would outweigh them 2 to 1, while the Arigiope may actually be longer. The body shape is very different; it is more like orb or crab spiders, with the very round (and very, very large) abdomen, small head, and long legs that are held folded against the body (as opposed to garden spiders, which spread them all out). I believe black widows are orb weavers; this spider had that body type, although it is significantly larger than the female BW.
Unfortunately, the twilight time made it hard to see the actual shape and size of the web they were weaving. I’ll try and peak this morning, although who knows if Mongo is still there. As far as what he was eating, both my hubby and I wanted to catch a moth and toss it up there, but ah well. We controlled ourselves.
Oh, and FWIW, the first spider was not an Arigiope, either. These things are everywhere–body about 1/4" long, brown (with some subtle darker markings–nothing as flashy), hairy-ish, weaving very large webs (about a foot in diameter) that one all too frequently can walk right through if not observant. The web itself is very coarse and sticky, as opposed to the finer, silkier ones I’ve encountered before. Perhaps I misspoke when I said it was a garden spider…?
Black widows are in the same order as orb weavers, but they diverge from there. Widows are cobweb weavers, really; they make sloppy messes of seemingly random strings, rather than the nice concentric circles of orb weavers. How’s the web look? Orb webs are really pretty, especially when it’s dewy out.
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When observed, this spider was weaving a web a good 15 feet off the ground, between a tree branch and house awning, but it would go all the way to the ground to anchor it
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The legs held against the body, and the shape and size of the thing sound like a cat-faced spider. The fact that the web was against the house is pretty typical of them as well. The color however doesn’t sound like one I’ve ever seen, but I don’t know if their coloration may be different in Cali. the ones I’m used to have banded legs, and the blob of black on their abdomen that people claim looks like a cat face(I’ve never seen it my self).
Max, both of those links you sent me were ones I’d actually been to earlier in the evening. Nice to know I was on the right track!
The tree spider link looked just about right, particularly in body shape–that’s exactly it! However, this spider was very smooth, not hairy like either of the pix, and the coloring was more uniform. I was amazed by how pale it was, and how unmarked.
Unfortunately, there was no web this morning–everything was long gone. But I’ll be watching for him tonight!
Re: “cat faced spider”… I did a search, and the best I’ve done so far is find a message board of insect/arachnid enthusiasts asking if anyone knew of an online picture of them. I’m wondering, though, if they appear in SoCal…according to some of the places I was researching, they’re a mountain spider, found in Colorado and Wyoming. Of course, I could be completely wrong.
The cat-faced-spider pic bears very little resemblance to what I saw. The color (and numerous markings) as well as shape do not add up…too dark, too slender, to mottled in appearance, etc.
Heck, allow me to toss another arachnid at you (AHHH! oh, wait, not literally). A few years ago my father caught an extremely large–we’re talking tarantula-sized–fellow that came crawling out of some boxes that had been stored under the house. (My mom did NOT appreciate its surprise!) The body was approximately 1 1/2" long, and legs were about 2". It was completely black, and completely hairless. (That’s what threw me off.) Research (in a pretty minimally useful Reader’s Digest book) suggested a trap-door spider, but last night research said those were much smaller spiders than this fellow (which we turned loose in our backyard). Are all tarantulas hairy, or was he some other variety I’m unfamiliar with?
I found a few more pictures that seem to be the a related species of Araneus spider from Australia; unless you’re really close, it might be hard to tell whether it’s hairless. I’m still inclined to think that some form of Araneus is your spider, even if it’s not andrewsi (although, that page says that the andrewsi specimen was found in California…).
As for your second spider…hm. My first instinct was to say a wolf spider, but those are hairy, like tarantulas, and very very fast. Can you remember anything more about it, like, say, the orientation of the eyes? Was it a glossy sort of black? Did it resemble a tarantula, or was it more bulbous, or more slender? How did it move?
And yep, spiders are really interesting. I’m actually really arachnophobic, but I do like studying spiders; they’re so diverse, and they’ve adapted in so many unique and interesting ways…
A more completely hairless possibility is Kukulcania which is very common. The female will just about get as big as you described. The first link has a great ( less black than usual ) photo - Scroll down to get it:
Oh, by the way, Araneus gemma is also known as the ‘Monkey-Faced Spider’. How they can look like a monkey and a cat at the same time beats me .
As far as your Orb-Weaver goes, the Arachnologist roomie muttered something about how it was definitely Araneus, but he’d be unwilling to guess further because of the difficulty involved with sorting out some species complexes. 'course he’s really more of a scorpion guy, so I’m inclined to just ignore his negativism .
The eyes were forwardly-placed, and very large. (We kept him/her in a jar for a day or two while we studied it, so I got several close looks. It may have been a few years, but I remember it very well.) The body was a glossy black–I remember its skin had the appearance of vinyl. I’d say yes, it resembled a tarantula–specifically the rose hair ones I’ve seen at pet stores, just slightly smaller, hairless, and black. (Memory may be cloudy here, but it may have been slightly more slender.) Its movement was fairly slow and deliberate, although he/she was not shy about ducking into the foliage when turned loose. It reminds me now of a python vs. a corn snake–bigger, heavier, and slower.
Meanwhile, it’s nearly dusk…I’ll be watching for Mongo to make his/her way out again tonight. I’ll have my digital camera ready if they do!
(Wolf spiders–can their bodies really get to be and inch and a half long? That’s HUGE! I’ve seen several half to three-quarter-inchers in the house–much to kitties’ delight–but nothing that enormous)
Ruffian: Re: Large, black, hairy, and shiny - Could still be Kukulcania. Wolf Spiders will indeed get that large, but they’re always a little hairy and they’re not black. Did it leave sheets of flat webbing with a bluish sheen in the enclosure where you kept it? That would be circumstantial evidence in favor of Kukulcania again, but they wouldn’t necessarily lay down silk, so the absence wouldn’t really prove anything.
Well, hold the phone. Maybe I’m wrong about dark wolf spiders - This looks is labeled as such and does look like one, from what I can see of the “face”. And it is pretty black. But they’re still always hairy. Pretty sure .
Wait, wait - Here we go. Is this it? I don’t really consider this “hairless”, but shiny and black it surely is - Reader’s Digest may have actually got this one right .
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