My new neighbor...ID please???

[SexiShrimp]

I found her right outside my door yesterday. She is beautiful! I know she's not a brown recluse or Black widow....I only know the important ones!

Does anyone know what type of spider she is? She's big too....3 inches by 3 inches!!! And she makes an awsome zig zag right in the middle of her web...I know that the zig-zag acts as a special UV light catching thing to attract her prey...that's as far as my knowedge goes!

Here she is: I named her big momma!

 

[Bebo77]

its not a black widdow or a brown recluse.. that much i know

 

[gflat65]

That's just what we used to refer to as a garden spider. They are good guys with incredible webs.

 

[danieljames]

We call them banana spiders back home mimi.

 

[Nashvegas]

yes i call them banana spiders

 

[SexiShrimp]

thanks guys..no I am a bit more informed on spider nameology!

 

[coral_reefer_25]

I don't call them anything....I just run. lol

 

[Ebmorri]

Argiope aurantia
(black-and-yellow argiope)

 

[fish tanked]

if you go up and blow on them they start swinging their web back and forth kinda interesting... That I think is the female and the male looks less colorful and probably lives in the ground underneath that web.

 

[SexiShrimp]

yeah, I noticed she did that when I got too close to her....interesting. Maybe she does that to make sure no one misses her and goes through her web....

 

[cee]

Common harmless garden spider, beneficial for bug control. Throw a cricket or small grasshopper in her web and watch the amazing show that ensues. Used to do that as kids all the time.

Dave

 

[SexiShrimp]

I turn on the porch light a couple minutes before I take the dogs out and then I stay for a while and watch the spiders catch thier meals and spin their webs around the little victims...it's so cool! sometimes big moths just rip right through the webs and the spiders have to spend an hour re-building it.....what a life!! I love nature!

 

[rcmike]

Yeah those are cool. They always have that little zig-zag in the middle of the web also.

 

[danieljames]

I actually saw a show on spiders not long ago on discovery. That's exactly what that little zig zag is for mimi. Apparently many see in the uv spectrum, and it glows yellow under uv radiation. They implied it was an evolution thing for certain spiders, because all spiders don't have it.

 

[kevlouie]

they are beautiful, yep they are really harmless, huge, and beneficial too, we called them garden spiders