So I recently found two interesting spiders in my yard, both of them fairly large. That, combined with seeing five praying mantises recently, and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some strange mystical insect vortex centered on my house.
Here’s the first spider.
She was in a ditch alongside the street, her web anchored about six feet across, and constructed perpendicular to the flow of the ditch.
I’ve come to learn that she goes by the names of Writer Spider, Garden Spider, and also Argiope aurantia.
She was active during the day, standing guard in the center of her web. Strangely, when I got near to her, she oscillated her web violently, like when two people hold a blanket between them and make waves with the blanket by moving their arms up and down. I assume this behavior was to scare me away.
But I think the Writer Spider has to be the patron saint of spiders to writers, so the scaring away part didn’t work with me.
This next spider constructed her web directly across the walkway going from our house to our car. Guess how we found out!
She was only active at night, constructing her web only after dusk. She would stand guard all night in the center of the web, then destroy her web in the morning, only leaving one anchoring guide wire strand of silk across the walkway. The next night, she’d reconstruct her entire web, hanging it from this guide wire.
Luckily this guide wire was above our heads, so during the day we could go in and out of the house without bothering the web.
Anyway, any spider with the Eye of Sauron on her abdomen is cool in my book.
The only problem is that I have no idea what type of spider this is. Any suggestions?
Until I find out, I’m calling her the Eye of Sauron Spider.
Someone has pointed out that this spider is a Garden Orb Weaver, Neoscona hentzi!
I still think the Eye of Sauron Spider is a good name too.