Orb Weaver

Description:

I think that this spider is a member of the Neoscona genus, but I had such difficulty taking the photos that I did not manage to capture the views that I needed. I wanted good ventral and dorsal views as well as a clear view of the eye arrangement, but did not achieve any of those. So, I ended up reaching the decision that it was a Neoscona spider on the basis of the body style, the shape and size of the cephalothorax (in relation to the abdomen) and finally the style of the web. I am pretty sure that I have seen Neoscona webs that look like this one, loosely woven with irregular shapes and large gaps. I realise that none of these "identifiers" are as good as one or two decent pictures. The difficulty with the picture taking on this occasion was frustrating at the time, but I look back on it now with some amusement. I will explain in notes below.

Habitat:

This spider was spotted at 5:00pm weaving its web on the metal grill in our front terrace.

Notes:

When I saw this spider, I had just come home from a long picture taking session on the farm and wanted to relax with a nice cup of coffee. I walked into our terrace and immediately spotted the spider, obviously busy building its web on the metal grill. Well, I had my camera in my hand and couldn't resist a few more pictures. Then it all went wrong. When I saw a perspective that I liked, I raised the camera up and looked into the view finder only to see that the spider was now in a different position. To get the shot I wanted, I now had to go out of the terrace and walk round into the garden. Of course, you know what happened next. When I got there, it was back to its original position and I had to go back into the terrace. This happened a few more times before I accepted defeat and the result is what you can see. A handful of pictures, none of which is much good for identification. I am sure that many of you have had such experiences and know exactly how it felt. When I eventually had a good look at my rather useless photos, I thought that something must have happened to this spider. I don't think it was injured, but it looks like it had been given a haircut but a crazy barber. I have no idea what could have caused the strange "cropping" of the hair on the carapace, if that is what can be seen in the photos. I'm just not sure.