# Identify This Spider

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-spider/418293>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 6, 2007, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-spider/418293 "2007-09-06T21:20:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2007, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-spider/418293/1 "2007-09-06T21:20:33Z")

</div>

[Any guesses](http://www.sirblah.com/misc/spider.jpg)? Sorry, I have no idea of scale, other than a description of “fricking huge”. However, your interpretation of “fricking huge” might be different that my sister-in-law’s, so YMMV.

Thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-spider/418293/2 "2007-09-06T21:22:21Z")

</div>

An Orb spider of some sort: [http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/wilks/spiders/images/Orb-Spider.jpg&imgrefurl=http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/wilks/spiders/pages/Orb-Spider.html&h=300&w=400&sz=15&hl=en&start=20&um=1&tbnid=dFidtQf2R2SqfM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dorb%2Bspider%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/wilks/spiders/images/Orb-Spider.jpg&imgrefurl=http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/wilks/spiders/pages/Orb-Spider.html&h=300&w=400&sz=15&hl=en&start=20&um=1&tbnid=dFidtQf2R2SqfM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dorb%2Bspider%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2007, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-spider/418293/3 "2007-09-06T22:04:04Z")

</div>

Bingo…thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2007, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-spider/418293/4 "2007-09-07T06:06:31Z")

</div>

For future reference, the left column of [bugguide.net](http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740) has a clickable guide to our creepy-crawly friends: “We collect photographs of bugs from the United States and Canada for identification and research.”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2007, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-spider/418293/5 "2007-09-07T16:02:28Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> Bingo…thanks!

It should be noted that “orb spider” is a very broad category. Any spider which weaves a web in that familiar concentric-polygons-with-spokes pattern is an orb spider.