Yellow Garden Spider
(Argiope aurantia)
These are some of the largest and showiest of the spiders commonly encountered in Pennsylvania. They are seen in gardens, tall weeds, and sunny areas with bushes and other supporting structures on which they build their large orb webs. Yellow garden spiders are found throughout most of the United States.
Description
Yellow garden spider females range in length from 19 to 28 millimeters. The carapace is covered with silver hairs, and the eight eyes are procurved with the lateral four eyes nearly joined and seated upon two projections or humps on either side of the front of the carapace. The second, third, and fourth pair of legs are black with the femora yellow to red. The front legs are frequently entirely black. The abdomen is an elongated oval that is pointed to the rear, notched in front, patterned
yellow and black, and has two anterior humps or shoulders.
The males are 5 to 8 millimeters in length and their legs are lighter in color than those of the females. The immature spiders have banded legs. The egg cocoons are deposited in the late summer and are spherical, brown papery sacs.
The web is large (50- to 100-centimeter diameters are not uncommon) and orientated vertically with a white, zigzag stripe down the center, which is called the stabilimentum. The exact function of this structure is unclear.A behavioral study of web construction determined
that the majority of Argiope trifasciata orient their webs along an east-to-west axis. The spiders hang head-down in the center of the web with their abdomens facing south. Since the underside (venter) of the spider is mostly black, the orientation of both web and spider is believed to maximize solar radiation for heat gain—an important consideration for spiders that are active late in the year.
Medical Importance
Similar to their cousin Argiope spiders, the banded garden spiders are not known to be medically important.
It is unlikely that bites would occur unless people handled a female with an egg cocoon in the web. Even then, the bite would likely cause no more discomfort in most individuals than that of a wasp or bee sting.
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