Eye on the Street
Decatur Metro | September 5, 2012
East Lake Drive, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Peter)
East Lake Drive, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Peter)
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We had one exactly like that outside our kitchen window a few weeks ago. Pretty scary looking dude. It stayed there for about a week. My 2 year old named it Molly. Then it vanished. I’m hoping it doesn’t show up inside the house; my wife might not survive the encounter. Okay, so I might not survive it either.
Just a harmless (and quite beautiful, both in their coloration and in the webs they spin) garden spider. Despite their size, they will not bite you, and have no interest in entering your house. They set up shop amidst lots of plants and help cut down on the population of mosquitoes and other pesky insects.
Reserve your squeamishness for the Black Widow and Brown Recluse, both of which I’ve encountered around my house. They warrant the fear.
Kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it!
Sorry. Knee-jerk reaction. While my brain acknowledges the validity of what you’re saying, my fight or flight response is weighing in with the advice to kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it.
While spiders don’t trigger that for me, and I’ll even go out of my way to try and capture and release indoor spiders outside, snakes are a different matter entirely…
Boris the spider.
How can those people go calmly down the street when there is a 50 foot tall spider from outer space about to eat them? Call the National Guard!!!
PACKERS WON THA SUPERBOWL!!!! PACKERSSSSS!!! WOOOO!!!
*EXPLOSION*
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iqLhdInGrk?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360
Thank you both for those clips! Totally made my afternoon! The only thing better than MST3K is the original B-movie trailer, IMHO.
wikipedia says
In North America, Argiope aurantia is commonly known as the black and yellow garden spider, corn spider, and writing spider, because of the similarity of the web stabilimenta to writing. . . . . .The very easily visible pattern of banded silk made by Argiope is pure white, and some species make an “X” form, or a zigzag type of web (often with a hollow centre). The spider then aligns one pair of its legs with each of the four lines in the hollow “X”, making a complete “X” of white lines with a very eye-catching spider coloured bright yellow on a field of black or variegated red white and yellow stripes forming its centre. The white patterns are called stabilimentum and reflect UV light. They have been shown to play a role in attracting prey to the web, and possibly to prevent its destruction by large animals.
Funny, it doesn’t look that big in the Wikipedia picture. . . .
Egads! It’s gonna eat that dog!
Fascinating! Thanks for the spider pics and info.
We’ve had several garden spiders over the years. The first one I saw terrified me so much I refused to go out the particular door of our house where it had set up shop. Once I found out they were harmless, I named her Ophelia, and we’ve given each new one that pops up that name ever since.
these are awesome spiders…..love the zigzag patterns in the webs….and if you blow softly on the web the spider just vibrates (i am the mother of boys which is how i know these things
) …it’s pretty cool to watch….as for black widows, we have found (too) many around our yard…eek!
As a certified arachnophobe, I must state that there simply is no such thing as an awesome spider. I don’t care if it enters my house and does my laundry, washes the dishes, and cleans the bathtub. Spiders are the demon spawn!!!
HA! hi little spider…come here little spider…let me pet you with my SHOE…dead little spider…
SOME PIG
We have a humongous spider that has set up shop in one of the windows in our breakfast area. She is not a garden spider (as shown here) but instead has a very large, round body and shorter legs with reddish and black striped markings. It is fascinating to watch her truss up and munch on bugs every day mainly because 1) she is outside, and 2) I’m not going anywhere near her, and 3) she is outside. We have totally named her Charlotte and my 6 year old is checking every day to see if she’s written anything in her web.
Is this your spider? We had one like it in our doorway last week, and a friend identified it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Orb_Weaver_Spider_Georgia.jpg
Of course I spent a few minutes on wikipedia myself this morning looking at pictures of large spiders (and giving myself the heebie jeebies) and I think that Charlotte is most likely an orb-weaver. She’s definitely making the characteristic “spider web” design web…over the entire bottom half of our window! Seriously, she is HUGE. She doesn’t have the exact same markings as the one in the link you posted, but they are pretty similar, just slightly more muted coloring. I think she is working on an egg sac which is pretty cool to watch if I remember to intentionally NOT think about millions of baby spiders hatching right outside my kitchen.
Spider outside? Live long and prosper. Spider inside? Die spider die.
Amen!
Was I the only one who had second thoughts about reaching under the bed last night after reading the above? I think I had spiders in my dreams too- ugh.