Ed. Note: February 5, 2013
We just posted a similar spider from Sumatra, Indonesia, and our research tends to indicate that we originally misidentified the spider in this posting. While we are confident the genus is Nephila, we cannot claim the species for certain.
Spider from Indonesia
April 28, 2010
This was on my porch. What is it? It is pretty cool. I live in Central Java, Indonesia. I found it just before the rainy season-January of this year-2010
Isaac
Java Indonesia
Good Morning Isaac,
We took the liberty of rotating your image 180º in order to orient this Golden Silk Spider into the position it is usually encountered. Golden Silk Spiders in the genus Nephila generally do not leave their webs, and they await prey suspended up-side-down. The common name Golden Silk Spider refers to the color of the silk, which is possibly the strongest silk spun by spiders and is also a lovely golden color. There have been several attempts in the past to harvest the silk from Golden Silk Spiders in order to produce textiles, but the process is cost prohibitive on a large scale. We believe your spider is the Batik Golden Web Spider, Nephila antipodiana, which can be viewed on the Guide to Common Singapore Spiders website as well as the Malaysian Spiders website.