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strange spider beetle thing
hello,
a couple of hours ago my family and i came across an odd looking bug, it is quite small only about a cm in size about three times the size of a ladybug. it has from what i can tell 8 legs, a red body, a black ’shell’ like thing on its back, with two small white spike like things coming of the ’shell’. it also has a yellow ring around the bottom of the ’shell’ . the back of its ’shell’ however is yellow, theres thin lines of red separating the yellow on the ’shell’ from the black. if it helps we are in New Zealand. if you need a photo i could try to take one, although i’m not sure if we’ll still have it depending on how quickly you reply. just so you know i’m obviously looking for the name of it
thanks a bunch
Tim

Hi Tim,
What we know immediately is that this is a Spiny Orb Weaving Spider. We need to do some research to see if we can identify the species. A quick search revealed nothing. There are two genera of Spiny Orb Weavers in the U.S.: Micrathena and Gasteracantha. Try searching there and let us know what you find.

Update: (01/19/2007) New Zealand Spiny Orb Weaver ID…
Hi there!
I did some searching on Google and found a New Zealand museum site with your spiny orb weaver. It calls it a Two-spined spider (Poecilopachys australasiae) and has some basic info about it.
http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/TePapa/English/CollectionsAndResearch/Collections/InsectsSpidersAndSimilar/Spiders/Spiders_Web/What/Twospined.htm
Regards, Matthew

Wow Matthew,
Thanks so much for your quick ID.

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