Black and Yellow Argiope

If you are afraid of spiders, you might ought to stop reading here because the blog tonight is about spiders.  This is the time of year for spiders.  You have probably noticed (or run into) the webs that are being spun by those huge spiders that like to make their webs right across your doorway every night.

Tom has been telling me about a couple of spiders that have webs out in the garden.  So, today I went out there to take a look.  I was delighted to find a Black and Yellow Argiope, one of those big spiders that builds a web that has a zig zag pattern in the middle.  Actually, I didn't know what it was called until I came back to the house and did a Google search for "spider zig zag web".  Tom says there are 4 of them are at different places around the farm.  This one  made its web between the rows of tomato plants.

I wish you could see the spider a little better.  It is really beautiful.  Black with yellow spots and black legs.  These spiders eat flying insects that get trapped in the web, mainly aphids, flies, grasshoppers, bees, and wasps.   They prefer sunny places to build their webs and each night they eat their web and build a new one. 

I'm fascinated with spiders because there are so many different kinds and they spin many different kinds of webs.  This spider is called and "orb web" spider because its web is circular.  There are even spiders that carry their young around on their backs!

Maybe I should have been a entomology major instead of a math major.