And Sat Down Beside Her............
Hi Everyone: Please do not click off at the thought of Spiders! This one will not hurt You. So, come on in for your Nature Break.
We have a guest to open our class today.
This is a dog named Fat Sissy (because she is fat). She felt she was being discriminated against for being Fat. (Our usual Star, Kay Lonnie Wray, is a slim redbone hound). Fat Sissy was a homeless puppy I rescued during the hurricane 3 years ago.
So please welcome Fat Sissy to Open Our Class Today:
Let The Class Begin!
Thank you, Fat Sissy (good job).
Our Photostudy today will be of this Garden Spider. They are a type of Golden Orb Weavers, but commonly called Banana Spiders or Writing Spiders. This one pictured 'writes' a zigzag signature after creating the large web.
In the above photo, we are looking at the underside of the spider.
You can see the two small arms up by her head, and see the little eyes and mouth. They have a small head. There are eight black and yellow legs that walk on the web she weaves. She spins the silk out of her body from the red area on the lower belly.
These photos were taken down by the creek. You can see how she blends in with the background colors. This is the position they hang in while at rest or waiting for a bug to get snagged in the web. The struggling bug shakes the web like a line on a fishing pole. The spider runs up and bites the prey, then wraps it with web and hangs it on the web to eat later. (Humans are Not prey).
The Golden Girl has special little hair-like things on her legs that help her walk on the sticky webs.
And yes, this is a girl and all spiders with the larger webs are girls. They spin the webs, catch the prey, make the silk egg cartons, lay the eggs and care for the nest. Her male is very small next to her. Maybe 1/5th her size. He stays on a small web of a couple of strings next to her big web.
Goodbye Golden Girl by: brendasue
This concludes our photostudy today of this Garden Spider who is a friend to have in our Gardens. Please do not kill these any longer and throw away the pesticides.
We need Spiders and they do live here on earth also. They may out number humans. If you have any comments on Why People Are Afraid of (or do not like) Spiders?
Was there some movie about Giant Spiders that I missed?
.......this is brendasue signing off from Rainbow Creek. Goodnight.
katescabin@gmail.com
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I've always loved banana spiders. They do a great job at eliminating pesky bugs you don't want around. I remember when I was a young girl, I had a piano teacher you would come to our house to give me lessons. We had banana spiders by our front door and my piano teacher was deathly afraid of them. It was really funny to see him so squeamish!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos!