Rob's plants home garden plants wildlife seed photos plant sale journal topics plantlinks fun guestbook Our garden's spider friends

Orb weavers

This black-and-yellow argiope (Argiope aurantia), or writing spider, was patiently awaiting dinner among our tomato plants. Guess who's going to be harvesting the tomatoes from now on?

Brown-hairy with colorful markings, Hentz's orbweaver (Neoscona cruciferae) is a traditional "scary spider". Very useful in the garden, though, as it catches all kinds of other insects. The one pictured at right lived in our driveway border. She had a nice web with traditional layout, but spent the daylight hours hiding in a leaf on the outskirts of her home (unlike the argiope above, who sits proudly in the center of her web at all times). When disturbed, she runs to the center of her web, and spastically shakes it about once a second, until she calms down.

This spotted orbweaver, probably Neoscona domiciliorum, clambered down my arm into my seed gathering bucket as I was collecting Thalictrum flavum seed one day - I must admit I didn't particularly care for the experience. After taking her picture, I gave her a new home in our garden.

The Venusta orchard orb weaver (Leucauge venusta) is smaller than the ones above. The bright coloration, so obvious in the photo, is easy to miss in a real-life encounter. Fittingly enough, we found ours in the orchard area of our garden.

This funnel web weaver (Agelenopsis sp.) had made its web in a crevice of our kids' yard play equipment. We're not sure it makes a good playmate, but these spiders are mostly harmless to humans. They create a funnel-shaped web and wait in the center, then pounce when their prey enters.

The longlegged sac spider (Cheiracanthium mildei) is commonly found in the US. It is poisonous to humans, which I didn't know until I read up on it after taking this photo. This particular individual was in an iris flower whose stalk had fallen to the ground after a thunderstorm. I don't know if it was lying in waiting for prey.

Another sac spider – possibly the same species, but it cannot be positively identified from this photo. It's either in the Cheiracanthium or Clubiona genus. My six-year-old daughter actually found this in her room (and she wasn't too happy). Spidy is now living outside. I wonder what happened to its left front leg?

Hunters, not spinners

This photo was a nice surprise - when I spotted the spider on a plant, I knew it was one I hadn't seen before, but I couldn't tell just how interesting it looked until the photo appeared on my screen. It's a striped lynx spider (Oxyopes salticus), so named because it pounces on its prey like a cat.

This tiny thing is a jumping spider, possibly in the Habronattus genus. It was resting on a metal plant tag.

This crab spider was a tiny thing (the seedpod is from a basil stalk, to give a sense of size).

Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen, are not true spiders. However, they have eight legs and strike fear in the hearts of many female humans, so I'll include them on this page. The one pictured here, most likely a species of Palpatores, was rather possessive about the gomphrena flower he had claimed for himself.

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Last modified: November 01, 2009
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