Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Giant Wood Spider

Nephila pilipes

Description:

A large female golden orbweaver under her web. 30–50 mm in length. It has lost several of it's long legs. It will always hang from under it's web such that it's underneath is facing the sky.

Habitat:

Webs between trees in Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary, Sandakan, Sabah.

Notes:

>>>Map accuracy : 1000 m diameter. Fun Fact: This species has over 20 synonyms! Nephila maculata is one of them.

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

5 Comments

ChunXingWong
ChunXingWong 10 years ago

I still can't explain about the size though.
I am not sure whether it is a type of variation or just difference in age.

ChunXingWong
ChunXingWong 10 years ago

Yes, I have realized that too.
This species has variations so the ones we found are the colorful variation whereas many pictures from the Internet are dull ones.
No wonder it has so many synonyms and sub species.
This sub species - Nephila pilipes jalorensis, seems to be the less colorful variation.

MartinL
MartinL 10 years ago

Thank you for this useful information. The images that you and I have appear smaller and more colorful than others. I know that N. maculata can get quite large. Have we found younger specimens?

ChunXingWong
ChunXingWong 10 years ago

Hi Martin, it's been a long time since I last heard from you.
Nephila maculata and N. pilipes are actually the same species.
Both of these scientific names are just synonyms and refer to the same spider.
Thanks for bringing this out, I will try to mention about this in my description.

MartinL
MartinL 10 years ago

Hey Chun. Yours and mine certainly look the same.
I have based my ID mainly on yours.
Do you know the difference between N. maculata and this species?

ChunXingWong
Spotted by
ChunXingWong

Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia

Spotted on Jun 7, 2010
Submitted on Nov 28, 2013

Related Spottings

Nephila Spider (Female) Nephila Spider Nephila vitiana Nephila clavipes

Nearby Spottings

Brown Caterpillar Winged Seed Fluorescent Katydid Metallic Green Forest Damselfly
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team