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Argiope catenulata
Argiope catenulata, also known as the grass cross spider, is a species of Orb spider ranging from India to the Philippines to Papua New Guinea. Like other species of the same genus, it builds a web with a zig-zag stabilimentum.
They are common in all rice environments. They are late colonizers of rice fields and are found with their heads hanging down in their webs.
This is a male spider as the body is brownish red in colour. The female spider has yellow and black body.
Spotted on Mar 16, 2014
Submitted on Mar 16, 2014
7 Comments
It is a bit of a mystery this one. The silver bar across the front of the abdomen is very catenulata. Aurantia does not have this. But the silver on catenulata also goes down the centre of the back and on your image it doesn't. The legs on a female catenulata are barred (not on the male) and even in shadow, this should be visible.
You are right, it may well not be catenulata. I think we should wait until you get the images though, before editing the post. Hopefully a spider expert will jump in and put us right.
Dave
Right.. M glad :)
At first I confused this with another type of garden spider - Argiope aurantia. Looks a lot like catenulata but Maybe that's just me. Anyway these are found in the western countries only..
No rush, windy doesn't work for spider shots.
You gave me the enthusiasm to grab my camera and get out there. I collected images of six species. I got a catenulata and a male close by, but no guarantees as to species, also I could not get the top side. If I post anything, I will tell you here :)
Dave
Yeah he's still there. But it's quite windy out here..
Although I can see yellow on the body. I doubt if it's male.
If you can find the same one again and use flash, it would be a great follow-up.
Dave
Thank you for the suggestion Dave! I'll guess I'll it with flash then.
It is quite difficult to tell from this image because of the poor lighting. But because the palps look thin, legs look dark, the spider looks quite large and is sat in a web with crossed stabilimenta, I suspect that this might be a female. But it is difficult to tell scale from an image and the lighting could hide the rest and I could be wrong about the stabilimenta (based on my own observations).
Spiders rarely sit in good light, so I suggest that you use flash. I use flash for nearly all my bug shots. Try to get shots from different angles; side, top, front and underneath if you can and post them all.
Don't get me wrong though, still a good spotting - just trying to help :)
Dave