mating Golden Garden Spiders
Here is one of a series of stills I made from video of Golden Garden Spiders mating in my back yard in North Central Texas: There were two males, but only the one who arrived first got the glory. The other only watched from the other (safe) side of the web. After each mating, the female appeared to become temporarily incapacitated, allowing the tiny mating male a few moments when he could move around her freely. At all other times he was very cautious, approaching from the female’s abdomen area, and between mating events he stayed on the other side of the web with the other male. I also have quite a bit of video of this. The mating continued for a week or two, many times each day. (I don’t know if it went on during the night.)
Bill Jones
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the great photos and interesting account of the mating activity of these beautiful Argiopes.