Signature Spider

Description:

Argiope luzona (Walckenaer,1841). This is, for me, the most interesting of all the spider species in our area. I must have observed and taken photos of hundreds of them and I have even carried out some rather amateur surveys to ascertain their favourite habitat, which indicated that they greatly prefer Banana Plants over all others. When I was looking around, in all the Argiope "hotspots", during my survey, one thing became apparent over all others. I never once saw a single Argiope on any "man-made" structure. There are many spiders which are associated with houses and other structures, but as far as I know, Argiope luzona is not one of them. I have often seen Argiope luzona spiders which, at first glance, seem to have made their webs on garden fences. However, on closer inspection, it has always turned out that the webs were mounted on plants that had grown on the fences, with no actual connections to the fence posts or railings. So, the spider shown here is behaving unusually. Firstly, it has built its web directly on a fence and secondly, the web is flat against the fishing net which comprises part of the fence. Normally, the only points of contact between an Argiope's web and the supporting structure (always a plant or tree of some sort) are the mooring lines, but in this case, the entire web is in constant contact with the "fishing net fence".

Habitat:

This Signature Spider was spotted in our backyard. Its web was moored on a temporary fence constructed of bamboo and a fishing net. This fence's purpose is to keep cats and dogs out of areas where young vegetables are just beginning to sprout and it can be pulled out of the ground and moved around for this purpose. It seems to be a very unusual habitat for this spider.

Notes:

Pic #1. A dorsal view of the spider. When I took this picture, the spider rapidly shuttled, to the back of its web, by passing through one of the holes in the fishing net. Pic #2. I foolishly walked all the way around the fence to get another photo and when I arrived, the spider immediatedly shuttled back again to the front. However, that worked in my favour as this view was "back-lit" by the sunshine, enabling the strands of the web to be seen much better. Pics #3. and #4. Slightly wider crops of the same photos to show the spider and its haitat. Pic #5. The lower left quadrant of the web can be seen, flat against the fence. Pic #6. The completely uncropped photo of the ventral view of the spider (its in the middle of the shot, but very small). The purpose of including this photo is to emphasize the habitat, but if you are interested in webs, you can zoom in to see the detail. I think there are only two small areas of "prey-capture" damage, one in the upper left quadrant and the other in the lower right .