wasp
Location: melbourne, australia
December 18, 2011 6:42 am
This huge ie 4-5 cm wasp was dragging huntsman spider up the window. Spider still seemed alive
I live in Melbourne, Australia and it is December-beginning of Summer.
Wasp not aggressive to me, BUT NOT HAPPY when I hit it with a broom. It dropped twitching spider & flew off!
Signature: Dom
Spider Wasp and Huntsman Spider Prey
Dear Dom,
We have several excellent images of Australian Spider Wasps with Huntsman Spider prey in our archives. The female Spider Wasp stings and paralyzes the Spider and then drags it back to her burrow to act as food for her brood. The adult wasps feed on nectar. We can imagine that it is a difficult task for the female Spider Wasp to locate her prey, sting it and then begin the long haul back to her burrow, and it is quite unfortunate that your broom hitting incident interrupted her task. We hope that now that you are better informed, you will allow these food chain dramas to play out without unnecessary interventions in the future.
1
Unknown spider
Location: VT
December 12, 2011 10:00 pm
I found this spider on my bedroom ceiling. I have never seen one that looks like this and wondering if you have any info. It has a weird white color stripe on head and back. It was roughly about the size of a nickel. This was in the state of Vermont.
Signature: Thank you
Parson Spider
The harmless Parson Spider, Herpyllus ecclesiasticus, has very distinctive markings. You can read more about the Parson Spider on BugGuide.
1
What is this?
Location: Sub-tropical rainforest area, Central Coast, Australia
December 9, 2011 10:59 pm
There’s a lot of weird bugs at my boyfriend’s house that I’ve never seen before, which is interesting because I grew up only a few kilometres away on a really similar property. Still, we saw this on the roof of my car and couldn’t figure out what on earth it is. It probably looks rather unproportionate in the picture, but each one of the long arms at the front was about 1 1/2 inches long. Not only is it creepy looking, it moves really damn quick.
Help?!
Signature: – Mel
Crab Spider
Hi Mel,
We believe this is some species of Jumping Spider in the family Salticidae. We have not had any luck determining the species.
Possible Correction
Trevor sent in a comment that he suspects because of the paired front legs that this may be a Crab Spider. There is a photo on the Brisbane Insect and Spider website that is called a Peak Crab Spider in the genus Tmarus or Sidymella that looks very similar. FlickR also has an image of Sidymella.
1
St Andrew’s
Location: NSW, Australia, near the coast.
December 10, 2011 12:17 am
Hi, I noticed you only have a couple of posts about St Andrew’s cross spiders. I thought you might like this picture of one that’s living on a plant outside our house.
Thank you!
Signature: Emma
St. Andrew's Cross Spider
Dear Emma,
Thanks for sending your excellent images of a St. Andrew’s Cross Spider, Argiope keyserlingi, to flesh our our archives. The Australian Museum has a nice page on the species. The name St. Andrew’s Cross Spider refers to the X-shaped stabilimentum woven into the web by the spider. It is commonly believed that St. Andrew was crucified by the Romans on an X-shaped cross in the first century AD.
St. Andrew's Cross Spider
Wow, That’s morbidly interesting! I’m glad you liked the photos. Thank you!
Dead Garden Spider on her Egg Sac?
Location: Santa Maria, California USA
December 5, 2011 3:41 pm
Hello, I have enjoyed several days and nights watching this spider in her web and have even thrown a few bugs in the web to feed it. About 5 days ago it stopped making/repairing the web and has been in this same position day and night, is it dead? It looks like it is on top of a brown egg sac too. I don’t want to poke at it but was wondering if it is dead and if it is a garden spider?
Signature: Maggs
Orbweaver
Dear Maggs,
This is an Orbweaver in the genus Araneus, and we believe it might be Araneus gemma which BugGuide describes as: “Female: carapace and abdomen vary in color from gray to brownish purple. The abdomen has anterior paired humps and may have a medial light stripe that varies in length. She does not look dead to us, and your theory that she may be protecting her egg sac is sound.
“
Spider!
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
December 3, 2011 9:55 pm
I came home today to find this spider on my front porch. I’ve never seen one like this before. It has large fangs! Do you know what it is? It’s body is about 1 inch long. This picture does no justice for the vividness of the colors.
Signature: Lucretia in California
Banded Garden Orbweaver
Hi Lucretia,
This beautiful spider is a Banded Garden Orbweaver, Argiope trifasciata. It is considered harmless, though it is possible it might bite a person if carelessly handled, though the bite would normally just cause local soreness and swelling.
1
Mother Wolf
Location: NSW, Australia
December 4, 2011 5:17 am
Hi again! Thought you might like this picture of a wolf spider and her egg sack. We found her while we where planting a mulberry tree.
Thank you!
Signature: Emma
Wolf Spider carrying her egg sac in her Chelicerae
Dear Emma,
We agree that this looks very much like a Wolf Spider, and that it most closely resembles the Garden Wolf Spider, Lycosa godeffroyi, which is pictured on the Brisbane Insect (and Spider) website. There is however, one very perplexing mystery for us. Wolf Spiders drag their egg sacs behind them from the spinnerets and Nursery Web Spiders including Fishing Spiders carry their egg sacs in their fangs or chelicerae like your individual. Here is a photo from our archive of a Fishing Spider with her Egg Sac and here is a Photo of a Wolf Spider with her Egg Sac, also from our archive. The Find A Spiderwebsite concurs with our statement: “Females produce a white or pale blue spherical egg sac and this may be carried around attached to the spinnerets. When the spiderlings hatch out they crawl onto the female’s upper surfaces, almost completely covering them. It is presumed this serves as an efficient means of dispersing the young spiders.” We hope to get some additional information on this mystery. Unfortunately, we cannot really make out the eye pattern arrangement in your photograph.
Wolf Spider or Nursery Web Spider???
I have a theory about why she was carrying her eggs like that. We disturbed her burrow when we where digging the hole for the tree. So she probably had to grab them quickly, and didn’t have time to do the spinneret/silk thing. It was a shame to wreck her home, but we have LOTS of these spiders around our house. Kind of hard to avoid them. We moved her away after I’d gotten some pictures, so hopefully she found a safe spot for them to hatch.
Thanks for the theory Emma. We still hope to hear from a few folks we contacted.
Eric Eaton responds
Daniel:
You are correct to at least the family level. I suspect her egg sac became detached from her spinnerets and so she is carrying it this way for the time being; or perhaps the sac is about to hatch?
Eric
1
flattie!
Location: key largo, fl
December 4, 2011 8:51 pm
Hey guys! Here’s a cool flattie spider hanging out on my bathroom wall. I live in key largo and I was wondering if I could get more specific species info from you 
Signature: wheezy
Flattie
Dear wheezy,
Thanks so much for sending us your photo. From what we have been able to glean from BugGuide, Flatties are in the family Selenopidae, and new world species seem to all be classified in the genus Selenops. According to BugGuide, there are: “7 species in BugGuide’s range (North America north of Mexico), but many species in Central America that can be possible imports.“ We are unable to provide you with an accurate species identification at the moment.
¶ Posted 04 December 2011 § Flatties ‡ ° 
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