I think yours is fatter than mine:
Guess you took yours later in the year, mine was mid-august. Mine is from South of Berlin, Germany. How far does the range of this lovely lady reach?
They definitely look related, even if not exactly the same spider! Yours is very pretty and sleek by comparison.
I think orb weavers are almost everywhere, aren’t they?
The photo of mine was taken a few days shy of mid-September.
They like to build their webs between trees, too, and I have walked through a web now and then in my years here. Always glad there is no one around to witness the ensuing, “Gah, spider!” dance.
I see now yours is from Oregon! Well, improbable that they are the same species then, but they look remarcably alike. They even seem to have the same number of red/pale rings on the last two segments of their hind legs and a similar pattern on their abdomen. 
That genuinely did make me laugh out loud.
j
Thanks! That looks like a good guess!
The Google image finder is coming up with Empyreuma pugione, the spotted oleander caterpillar moth. Very pretty!
In my research that photo looks like it could be Pepsis grossa - Baja Tarantula Hawk or Pepsis thisbe - Thisbe’s Tarantula Hawk, Thisbe’s Tarantula Hawk 2.
Both are nectar feeders as adults, but are puported to deliver a painful sting. The stinger on P. thisbe is up to 7 mm long. Don’t know if either of these are quite correct, as they don’t display the yellow on the end of the antennae, but would still bet it’s in the Tarantula Hawk family.
ETA: Identified P. grossa as moth, not hawk. Corrected.
Galactus, that is not a bug, that is a feature!
@Twoflower - well done!
For this comp, is this the only example of a photo taken during the competition period (so far)? (I wasn’t sure if @Aspenglow had managed the same, or was commenting that she had managed to find just the one bug photo in archive.)
j
Gad, no, I didn’t manage it. Archive all the way. It’s the wrong time of year for bug photos in my environment – and probably for many others, too. @Twoflower deserves extra credit for managing to find a bug to photograph at this time of year!
Egads, @Twoflower , is that a box elder bug? I’ve had them making their way into the house during the deep freeze last week, in the foothills between Sandy & Estacada here on the west side of the state. I love my maple trees, but they make me have to battle the box elder bugs something fierce. Nice photo, though!
If you are in Illinois, most of Missouri, or scattered parts of the South, you may get a chance to get a few photos of these guys in April:
I’m pretty sure this one is a bordered plant bug. My take on boxelder bugs is that they have more orange on the training edge of the top wings.
And fortunately, it didn’t get nearly as cold here in Ashland; we missed out on the ice storms.
I think the odds of cicada viewing may be better than average this year:
Looks like that might be the case. Had to make 3 trips to urgent care last summer for cellulitis infections caused by box elder bugs. The first one went from the size of a half-dollar when I got to UC to the size of my hand when they finally got me in. Box elder bugs don’t normally bite, but they will use their piercing mouthparts if they feel threatened.
For the atlas moth, here’s a phot showing relative size
Friggin awesome!
An interesting, but perhaps sad, thing about the Saturniid moths, is that once they emerge in their adult stage, they have very short remaining lives. They only eat during their larval (caterpillar) stage of life, and as adults, they do not even have a functional digestive system. The rest of their short lives is lived on energy left from their larval stage. They live only to mate and lay eggs, and they have only a week or two to do that before they die.
As impressive as their wings are, they don’t fly very much, because doing so uses up their limited supply of stored energy, and shortens their already brief lives.
That’s not a terribly uncommon pattern among some insects. Perhaps the most extreme form is among mayflies, where the final adult stage has lifespan of no more than a few days, at most; in one genus, the female lives for less than five minutes in the adult stage, before dying. That’s how long she has to mate, and lay her eggs.