Subject: shiny silver spider – not a garden spider
Location: Cincinnati, OH
July 5, 2017 2:51 pm
Hi. My son and I found today small spider, a bit smaller than a pencil eraser, that was very iridescent silver. It had built a between the deck railing and a nearby tall weed, which had trapped several small insects already. The part of the web on which the bugs were caught was roughly parallel to the ground, but there seemed to be a lot of silk in multiple directions around it, making the overall structure 3-dimensional rather than two. When the spider noticed us, it ran up a strand to the deck railing, but at other times it rested on the underside of the main web. I’ve attached a photo with flash, and one without, but neither seems to capture how silver it appears. I was not able to get my phone to focus on the web, but there is no zigzag structure, so I’m pretty sure it’s not a garden spider.Thanks in advance!
Todd Gessner
Cincinnati, OH
Signature: Todd Gessner
Dear Todd,
This sure looks like a harmless Orchard Spider to us. BugGuide does not discuss the form of the web, but we have seen the web of an Orchard Spider in Northeast Ohio and it looks as you describe it.