A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Argiope aurantia
Female Argiope aurantia (garden spider). Her legs are a tan/brown color that end in black. Her abdomen is black with yellow and white markings. A grey tuft of fur covers the top of her thorax. Female garden spiders generally range in size between 19-28 mm (0.75in-1.10 in). Female garden spiders are much larger than their male counterparts and display more color and markings as well. Male garden spiders are brown with narrow abdomens and their size only ranges between 5-9 mm (.20-.35 in)
Argiope aurantia are common across southern Canada, the United States, Mexico and Central America. I found this girl, who was in the middle of a meal, hiding in a thick growth of canna lily. The webs of female garden spiders are circular and often display a zigzag of silk, called a stabilimentum, down the center.
Argiope spiders are not aggressive and keep to themselves, but they may bite out of defense if grabbed or disturbed. While they do contain venom it is not known to be toxic to humans.
Spotted on Sep 18, 2016
Submitted on Sep 22, 2016
2 Comments
Thanks AntónioGinjaGinja for the warm welcome. :)
Hello feliciajoy and Welcome to the Project Noah community!
We hope you like the website as much as we do. There are many aspects to the site and community. The best way to get started is to read the FAQs at http://www.projectnoah.org/faq where you can find all the tips, advice and "rules" of Project Noah. You, like the rest of the community, will be able to suggest IDs for species that you know (but that have not been identified), and make useful or encouraging comments on other users' spottings (and they on yours).
There are also "missions" you can join and add spottings to. See http://www.projectnoah.org/missions . A mission you should join is the http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/2004... to chose the best wild photo of 2016,only the spottings added to that mission are eligible.Note that most missions are "local". Be sure not to add a spotting to a mission that was outside of mission boundaries or theme :) Each mission has a map you may consult showing its range. We also maintain a blog archive http://blog.projectnoah.org/ where we have posted previous articles from specialists from different geographical areas and categories of spottings, as well as wildlife "adventures".
So enjoy yourself, share, communicate, learn. See you around :)