This thing has a huge, elaborate web in one of my flower beds.
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These large (up to 3 inches long), brightly colored orb weavers are common garden spiders, often called “writing spiders” because of the zigzag pattern they create in their webs. I’ve heard lots of interesting folklore about these spiders. When I was a kid, I remember hearing that if you looked too closely at one of these spiders and it looked back at you, it would write your name in it’s web.. of course after that, you were doomed. The same would happen if this spider heard your name spoken. While taking these photographs, I was very careful to stay out of her line of sight, and I certainly didn’t speak any names. ;-)
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Click photos to view larger.
Side view, spider and web zigzag pattern, a doomed bumblebee
Wow! Excellent shots of my favorite spider. I don’t think we have them where I live now, but used to have them in Missouri, sometimes dozens in the summers. (Those summers were rare, but I loved it.) I used to catch grasshoppers and put them in their webs to watch them wrap them up. A little cruel to the grasshoppers, but a spider never wrote MY name in a web! Maybe it was like an offering to the spider gods or something.
hmm.. that’s interesting, Louise. Maybe I should go back out there tomorrow and catch a grasshopper for her web.. you know, just to be safe?
LoL :)
Wow these are awesome shots of my cousin John… He’s looking good these days, must be the move down south was just what he needed… Say Sherry have you seen any sign of my cousin Charlotte, she looks a lot like cousin John but she’s much wiser and she enjoys writing in her web…???
LoL Spider — are you sure this isn’t Charlotte?
I always loved that story. :)
No Sky on Friday, but some wonderful macro pictures!
I’ve never heard about this spider, maybe I’ve seen one without notify it. I wouldn’t appreciate to be too close, either.
The middle one, with its zigzag is amazing!
What a great photographer you are!
Hi Catherine, I agree, I didn’t want to get too close to it. I know they’re supposed to be harmless, but still.. it’s a big spider! lol
Thank you for your kind comments, I’m glad you enjoyed the photos.
THAT is an amazing shot. I would have taken the same precautions.
*hugs*
Thanks Shimmy Mom. I definitely kept my distance! :)
Sherry,
I have one of these spiders on my window screen that is growing and it is
really pretty! I have had several of them over the years and I really think they are amazing spiders. They have beautiful coloring!
I enjoyed your photos, Thanks!
Hi Nancy, I agree that they are amazing. I like to see them in the garden (from a distance!) :)
Thanks for your comments, glad you enjoyed the photos.
-Sherry
Sherry, I have 4 of them beside my front porch, one of them is very smart, it made its’ web under the bug zapper, the others are attached to my forcythia bush. I had to put up a note for my grandkids not to try to knock them down. I am basicly afraid of spiders, but these facinate me. I also throw bugs to them. Where do they go in the winter, and do the same ones come back each year?
Hi Wanda,
Wow, you have four of them! They are interesting to watch. I’m definitely afraid of spiders too (especially the gigantic wolf spiders we have here!), but as you said, these are fascinating.
As for where they go in the winter– unfortunately, they die after laying an egg sac. Here’s some info I found on wikipedia about these spiders:
“Yellow garden spiders breed once a year. The males roam in search of a female, building a small web near or actually in the female’s web, then court the females by plucking strands on her web. Often, when the male approaches the female, he has a safety drop line ready, in case she attacks him. After mating, the male dies, and is sometimes then eaten by the female.
“She lays her eggs at night on a sheet of silky material, then covers them with another layer of silk, then a protective brownish silk. She then uses her legs to form the sheet into a ball with an upturned neck. Egg sacs range from 5/8″ to 1″ in diameter. She often suspends the egg sac right on her web, near the center where she spends most of her time. Each spider produces from one to four sacs with perhaps over a thousand eggs inside each. She guards the eggs against predation as long as she is able. However, as the weather cools, she becomes more frail, and dies around the time of the first hard frost.
“In the spring, the young spiders exit the sac and are so tiny that their collection of bodies look like dust gathered inside the silk mesh. Some of the spiderlings remain nearby, but others exude a strand of silk that gets caught by the breeze, carrying the spiderling to a more distant area.”
-Sherry
I took a picture last Saturday evening of one of these spiders in South Carolina. Is it possible for me to send it to you for verification?
I, too, heard from my mom the story of being careful that the spider didn’t see you or it would write your name in its web.
Hi John,
I’m not an expert and could only identify it if it looked the same as the one in this post. My contact info is linked at the top of the page.
haha I do remember always hearing that about never letting one of these see you. :)
Thanks for commenting,
Sherry
Loved these type of spiders …I think i have feed them just about everything other spiders, black widows ,brown recluse and many others …once feed one a mouse that my cat had caught one time there is nothing this spider wont eat ….like to see them on my porch tell people don’t mess with her she is my pet…
Anonymous,
Thanks for your interesting comments. I didn’t realize they would eat something as big as a mouse!
-Sherry
Im so sad. I have had a garden spider in my window all summer- it made an egg sack several weeks ago, and another one apparently over night. I just went out and found the spider laying on the ground dead, with two legs off. I’m certain nothing got it, did she die on her own?
Hi Jeanette,
Sorry I missed seeing this comment until now.
Sorry about your spider too. I have read that they sometimes die soon after laying an egg, and they definitely die at the first hard frost. (see my comment to Wanda above, it has some info from wikipedia). It’s a shame isn’t it? They are so beneficial to the garden.
-Sherry
I just found one outside my picture window. My boys HATE spiders but I think I will leave this one alone. It is kind of pretty. The web looked like a normal web though. Wasn’t sure if that was it or not. Had a hard time getting a pic of it.
-Billie Sue
Hi Billie Sue,
They are kind of pretty. I wouldn’t want one to get on me though.. lol
-Sherry
My name is Sherry also, and I have a spider just like this on on my back porch. I also call her Charlotte…lol.. I had her almost all summer.. How long will she live? And is there anyway to distinguish a male from a female?
Hi Sherry :)
According to wikipedia (see my reply to a comment above yours), the female spider will die soon after she lays her egg, right about the time of the first frost. It’s a shame that they die– apparently after just one year, isn’t it?
The males are just a brown color, they don’t have the bright colors that the female has.
-Sherry
We just discovered one of these in our flower bed in our back yard (NE Pennsylvania). It’s making the ‘writing’ in the web. Never saw one of these before and immediately had to look it up. It is a shame they have to die off. We have tons of spiders around here but I never saw one this big or this colorful!
Hi Lynette,
I agree, it’s a shame that they die so quickly, especially since they are beneficial.
I’ve grown up with garden spiders everywhere – they are the only spiders that don’t really bother me. . .okay ALL spiders kind of freak me out but garden spiders the least of all. . . there is a large one who has had her web in the stems of my salvia all summer and just today I saw her egg sack next to her web. . . .I guess I’ll monitor her web daily to see if she is still okay as our first frost (coastal NC) is not for some time yet. . . .