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This gorgeous spider had built her web
in a tree just about my eye-level. It was not a complete
web, I think she was in the process of taking it down
and eating the silk. She had a retreat web where she had
curled over a leaf and spun silk around it: it was
impossible to see her when she crawled into it. Orb
weavers (family Araneidae) make up a huge family with
several hundred species in North America. They vary
greatly in shape, size, and color. They have 8 eyes
arranged in 2 horizontal rows of 4 eyes each. Their
chelicerae (jaws) usually have a small bump, or boss, on
the outside margin. Male orb weavers are commonly much
smaller than the females; this is amply born out by
these pictures. |
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Orb webs are spun in a spiral, on support lines that radiate outwards from the center. Many spiders in this family replace the entire web daily, recycking the silk by eating it. This highly complex protein is energy dense, and these spiders have evolved a thrifty recycling strategy. The male orb weavers frequently spin their own smaller orb webs near an outlying portion of the female's web. |