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Meet Sigourney the golden orb weaver.

No idea about gender, but judging by the other speck of a spider that can occasionally be seen on the web, I think its probably a girl.

She spent a few weeks weaving right over the bsack door but has finally gotten the message and leaves us a lovely walkway through the backyard. In exchange, I turn on the light for her dinner The web is a bit of a masterpiece, every few days she'll strip back sections and re-spin them. Its not really orb-shaped (perhaps that refers to her round backside?) but its not your average spiderweb either!



For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

You're a lot nicer to that spider than I would have been!

how large is Sigourney? She looks like she might leave a nasty bite mark

"No whammy, No whammy, No whammy, STOP!!"

1984-Michael Larsen On Press Your Luck

Aye, she's a beauty, but you can keep her!!

Whassat from Fallout, sounds familiar.

Nice spidey BTW, shows there's no need to go around recklessly smooshing everything in site.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Her rear end us about the size of a hazelnut, so she's pretty big. I suspect she would have a bit of a painful bite, so as tempting as it has been, I haven't touched her.


I tend not to smoosh things unless they are deadly or very dangerous (red backs, funnelwebs, white tails) and even those only when they are in a place to be dangerous. I have to be a bit careful with the dogs and cats around, they stick their snouts in almost anything.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Whassat from Fallout, sounds familiar.

My mind If it's from a movie, i have no idea, never heard it before

I quite like golden orbs too. At our old house our front yard became covered with them. It was kind of annoying in some ways (especially walking up the front path at night not knowing if one had spun a web across it), but I started calling them my 'army of the night', protecting the large windows up there from intruders. My current front yard is pretty devoid of wildlife apart from the usual birds, geckos and other lizards, so I often miss that house with its giant spiders and bush turkeys and possums.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. - Oscar Wilde

I saw a teeeeny tiny male in with her a while ago, but didn't think anything of it, and now lookie what she's made! Its just beautiful Its around the same size as a silkworm cocoon, maybe a bit bigger.

I'm so excited! More orb weavers! sure bests the last spider population explosion of redbacks, I'm still squishing those things *mutter mutter*

and I know its not real babies just yet, but its potential babies, and that is almost as exciting

Um, and does anyone know how long orb weavers live? I'm having sad Charlotte's Web thoughts here I like my little fly-munching friend.



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For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

She must have had a lot of eggs, check out the size difference from the first photo!

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For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

OOO cool

You'll have to feed her extra flies now! And when the babies come, you'll have to get a culture of fruit flies for the lil'ins

I think it's about a year.
She is gorgeous though

that's pretty cool.
You mightget thousands of them looking to re-locate not too far way from mum in a few months, too!
They are called orbs by their webs.
If yours is the common garden orb, it should actually take it's web down at night then spin it again in the mornng, if it really is a golden orb she'll stay there day and night, but will build a pair of sesor strands either side of the orb (one high and one low) to warn her about birds etc..
Quite an interesting species, and you'll find they dont like to bite much, and some species' fangs are that small they wont penatrate the skin...even if you get bitten, the worst you're lookin at is throwing up probably just a rash, if that tbh.
Nice find, keep the egg-shots update..
James

i used to have a pet spider outside my dad's house many many years ago. it was a golden garden spider and it was almost the size of my hand it spun a 7ft web just to the right of the front door of the house and i used to find bugs to throw in its web to keep it fed

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

I've never heard of such a thing.......keeping such a pet spider & then excited cause it's going to have babies!? (shivers)

Thousands is frightening, if the OH gets a say they may need to relocate a bit further than that. I like having a few, but I couldn't handle a garden full, they are rather inconsiderate builders. May need to employ some of those broom-handle tactics until they learn the high traffic areas!

She only respins sections, usually 3-4 segments of the main web at a time. I'm fairly certain that she hasn't ever taken it all down at once. Definitely out there day and night, around 3pm she'd usually spinning up her afternoon catch I know that about 30 mins from here there is a large er... colony? of golden orb weavers that span across the tops of mangrove trees, and you can walk under them on a boardwalk. I quite like spiders, but that does terrify me.

Originally I thought this one was a St Andrew's Cross spider, but the web just took on a life of its own. it has a main web, with 5 anchoring strands, and a sort of secondary web (without the netting, just warp threads) leaning 45* back from the primary web. It is quite a creation! Sadly it doesn't photograph well. if its warm soon, I might try spritzing it with water to get a better shot, but I'm guessing she'll be less than impressed with that idea.


The eggs are now curled in a leaf, and she runs down to hover over them every few hours. A quick spin or adjustment and she'd back at her post

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I love all animals, even the one that make me shriver. It can be their scary appearance or just the natural abilities, that amaze me. However, I would have to draw the line of having a spider living outside my door laying eggs that will breed no doubt hundreds more. I like the arrangement I have with them, if I don't see you than I won't remove you. I hope the size of the spider is just because of the zooming in of the photo. If not I would have to move or the spider would have to move.

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams

My arrangement is a bit more relaxed, but similar. If you are dangerous or deadly, you die. If you are inside my house and are dangerous or deadly you die quickly. Redbacks, Whitetails and Funnelwebs are very short-lived if I find them. Daddy long legs and huntsmen can stay inside, but not in the bedrooms (have a fear of one landing on me while I sleep) and leafcurls, orb weavers and St Andrews cross can stay outside. I don't really see too many others, but they fall into one of the three categories.
I have 3 pets and a poor Dutch guy who can't tell the difference between 'good spider' and 'bad spider' to think about (seriously, he asked me to move a spider outside the next day, had one look and it was one very cranky redback in his socks!) And me, I'm too fluffy in the head these days to have poisonous things laying around.

And no, the first photo makes her look huge, the last two are a better reference. At her biggest, her rear end was small cherry-sized.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Is this a species of Nephylla? We have a Golden Orb spider in the tropics of that gender, grows to be quite big, almost the size of ones hand...And the female would be the larger one as you stated before, the male being quite smaller in size...

I stick to the policy of: if its not harming you leave it alone... so no spider gets killed at my house, only weary about the black widows but they mind their business usually.

If and when I find a spider I carefully capture it and relocate it outside. Once had a type of tarantula dart across my bed covers while I was watching tv and the lights were off, by the time I realized what it was the spider was out of sight!

Fun stuff...

Nice specimen