Subject: What is kind is this?
Location: Palm Harbor, Florida
October 28, 2013 2:47 am
This spider would build a web from a tree in my front yard to my daughters SUV in the drive way every night. The tree and SUV are approximately 15 to 20 feet apart. Yet every night it would rebuild its web. It took some doing but I was able to get it in the bag and take a photo of this big spider. Can you tell me what this is.
Signature: ?
Dear ?,
This is a harmless Orbweaver in the family Araneidae. We searched bugGuide to try to provide a species name for you, and this image on BugGuide of Eriophora ravilla looks very similar, but it is apparently an uncommon color variation. She does not look happy in that bag. We hope you released her after the photos were taken. Orbweavers build a classic web and they await prey that becomes ensnared. Though they gracefully maneuver within their webs, Orbweavers are rather clumsy on their own. As you noticed, Orbweavers will build a web in the same location day after day unless they are disturbed, so we expect that relocation might be somewhat traumatic for them. We wish our maid wouldn’t sweep the webs on our front porch away, but as long as the spiders are unharmed, they can usually find a new place to spin.