🐾 Garden Orb-Weaver Spider

Garden Orb-Weaver Spider

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Who it is

• Scientific name: Family Araneidae
• Family & relatives: It belongs to the orb-weaver family Araneidae; its relatives are the many other spiders, all of which have eight legs and spin silk.
• How to spot it: A small round-bodied spider with eight legs that spins a beautiful wheel-shaped web between plants.

Its body & abilities

• Size: Body about 6 to 20 mm long, with legs that make it look a bit bigger.
• Weight: Very light, usually well under one gram.
• Body & adaptations: It has eight legs, several tiny eyes, and special spinners at the back that squeeze out silk thread.
• Top speed: It walks slowly on its web but can scurry quickly across the strands when it needs to.
• Strength: For its size its silk is amazingly strong, able to hold prey many times the spider's own weight.
• Senses: It senses the world mostly by feeling tiny movements and gentle vibrations in its web.
• Growing up: Tiny spiderlings hatch from a silk egg sac, float away on threads in the breeze, and grow bigger by shedding their skin.

Where it lives

• Habitat: Gardens, meadows, hedges, and woodlands, wherever there are plants to anchor a web.
• Where in the world: Orb-weavers live on every continent except Antarctica, all around the world.
• Territory: Each spider keeps to its own web, often rebuilding it in the same spot each day.

What it eats

• Diet: An insect eater that gets moisture from its prey and from dew droplets on the web.
• Favorite foods: Small flying insects such as flies, moths, mosquitoes, and gnats.
• How it hunts: It waits patiently, and when an insect bumps the sticky web, it wraps the meal in silk to eat later.

How it behaves

• How it moves: It climbs and walks using tiny claws and hairs on its feet that grip the silk lines.
• When it is active: Many orb-weavers work at night to build and repair their web and then rest quietly by day.
• Family life: Mostly solitary, each spider living alone on its own web; there is no special group name.
• How it talks: Spiders mostly communicate by plucking silk threads to send gentle vibrations to each other.
• Babies: The female lays her eggs in a soft silk sac and hides it safely until the baby spiders hatch.

Its place in nature

• Role in nature: A helpful garden friend that eats many pest insects; birds and wasps sometimes eat spiders.
• Conservation: Garden orb-weavers are common and widespread, and are not considered to be at risk.
• Dangers: Many are eaten by birds and other animals, and cold winters end the lives of the adults.

Life & legacy

• How long it lives: Most live about one year, often finishing their life after the first cold weather arrives.
• In our culture: Spiders and their webs appear in many friendly stories, like the beloved tale of Charlotte's Web.
• Where to see it: Look for their round, dewy webs in your own garden or a park on a cool, calm morning.
• Fun fact: An orb-weaver can spin a whole new wheel-shaped web in about an hour, often overnight while you sleep.