Venusta Orchard Spider

Description:

Never been much into bugs, especially not spiders. But I figure maybe if I learn more about them, I might not be so irrationally afraid of them. In my little park excursion I passed a small spider balancing in it's tightly spun web and I decided to take a picture and identify. Basically, with only a little bit of digging, I uncovered that it is most likely a Venusta Orchard Weaver, based of comparisions made to pictures and descriptions on this website: http://www.spiderzrule.com/venusta.htm however, it states that in this species there are several varieties. The one I found is one with red markings on it's underbelly. It's scientific name is Leucauge venusta.

Notes:

Sorry the picture of the underbelly is blurry, I was having difficulty figuring out my camera's focus. That's the exact reason you can see my hand in the other picture. The camera focused a lot better with a background closer to the spider than the ground. Should have retaken the underbelly shot. http://procezzed.blogspot.com/2012/02/ve...