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Spiderwars?
I am sending you these pictures that my husband recently took of the spiders outside our sliding glass door. Are they dangerous? There are tons in my garden. The webs are VERY sticky, tough, and the spiders themselves have sticky little feet…I had one crawling on me the other day, and nearly died of heart failure. These gems are about 1 to 1.5 inches and the smaller skinny one is more aggressive than the fat one. I can assume that they are a Mr. and Mrs., but which is which? In the garden, when you see one spider, you don’t really have to look far to see a separate web with the partner in close proximity. Local people call them “quarterbacks” as the bulbous body can easily reach the size of a quarter. If they do bite, do you know what a remedy is (if needed?) Thank you for the help.
Ruth

Hi Ruth,
There are so many similar looking Araneus species as well as so much variation within a species, that we have given up trying to get species names on Orb Weavers. Let’s just call them a pair of Araneus Orb Weaving Spiders. The female has the more bulbous abdomen. The bite is not dangerous and they would really have to be provoked to bite anyways. The weather this year created a population explosion of insects, and hence, their predators like spiders are also plentiful.

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