MamaGrizzly

Spider at our house

16th July 2007

Spider at our house

posted in Life |

We have a cool spider living at our house and we’re looking for help in positively identifying it. We’ve actually seen him molt! He’s a very fascinating spider with a pretty interesting web. Below are pictures. Anyone know what he is?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 6:16 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 9 responses to “Spider at our house”

Why not let us know what you think by adding your own comment! Your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, so come on... let us know what you think.

1 On July 16th, 2007, Surely said:
According to my hubby, this is a Golden Orb.

posted on July 16th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
2 On July 17th, 2007, mamagrizzly said:
He’s a pretty cool spider and the cat doesn’t seem to scare him one bit! She sleeps on a couch and what you see is the view she has of the spider. Thanks for info!

posted on July 17th, 2007 at 6:25 am
3 On July 17th, 2007, Joan said:
I had one of those on my porch a couple of days ago. He was very impressive but I did have to relocate him so I could get in and out.

posted on July 17th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
4 On July 17th, 2007, babbie said:
Isn’t this what they call a banana spider? Charleston’s the only place I’ve ever seen them.

posted on July 17th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
5 On July 17th, 2007, Kaytee said:
My son Jay agrees with Surely’s hubby. Jay is 11 and really into spiders. So he pulled out his spider book and showed me why he thought it was the Orb. “It’s in the web. The way there’s a row of orbs.” Like that would explain everything to me. LOL
Great pic. Jay loved it.

posted on July 17th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
6 On July 17th, 2007, frank said:
This is a member of the Argiope family, sometimes known as St. Andrews Cross spiders. A google image search for St. Andrews Cross spiders will display a number of similar images (except most have X decorations. I found one in our garden near MUSC several years ago: http://frank.itlab.us/aurantia/. I live in Singapore now and saw a similar one a couple of months ago: http://frank.itlab.us/photo_essays/wrapper.php?may_05_2007_queenstown.html

Very nice photos. Its quite different from the banana spider mentioned by babbie - which in Charleston is Nephila clavipes: http://frank.itlab.us/spider_2002

If you are interested, the tropical flavor of the banana spider here is Nephila pilipes - and here are some photos of one mating: http://frank.itlab.us/photo_essays/wrapper.php?jul_14_2007_nephila.html

posted on July 17th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
7 On July 17th, 2007, Rose Paul said:
I was told those were Writer Spiders.
I had them when we lived in Wilmington NC.
I was also told (by the NC Arboretum) they were endangered…but I had at least 5 of those writing their webs all over my holly Bushes!
AKA the yellow garden spider, here is a wiki ID, see if you think it the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_aurantia

posted on July 17th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
8 On July 20th, 2007, Our spider » MamaGrizzly said:
[...] took some more pictures of our spider but I haven’t had a chance to post them yet. Others and Frank Starmer helped us identify the [...]

posted on July 20th, 2007 at 8:49 am
9 On July 25th, 2007, Mark Musselman said:
The spider in the image is a Black-and-yellow Argiope (Argiope aurantia) and is one of the largest and most conspicuous of the eastern orb weaving spiders. The female is four times larger than the male.

Be careful with the common name “Banana Spider”. Some call the relatively harmless Golden Silk Orbweaver (Nephila clavipes) by that name. However the Brazilian Wandering Spider (http://www.petbugs.com/caresheets/P-fera.html) is a highly-venomous spider that also carries the common name “Banana Spider”.

Education Director
Audubon at the Francis Beidler Forest

posted on July 25th, 2007 at 8:28 am