Venusta Orchard Spider - Leucage venusta

Venusta Orchard Spider
The species epithet venusta comes from Latin beautiful, and I say this spider lives up to its name.

The Venusta orchard spider is one of a handful of orb weavers that spin their webs near the horizontal plane. Females almost always sit underneath, bottom side up.

Spiders in the family Tetragnathidae are commonly called long-jawed spiders, or long-jawed orb weavers. Tetragnathidae is newly separated from the family Araneidae. Both families build orb webs, but they use different construction techniques. Tetragnathids build orb webs with open centers while members in family Araneidae build orb webs with dense center.

I love the comb-like rows of hairs on this lovely spider's rear leg tibiae.

Venusta Orchard Spider

Orb weaver spiders get their common name from their large circular webs, constructed of concentric circles supported by radial spokes. They are found worldwide, with with around 3500 species [1] in 168 genera [2]. Most people recognize these common spiders by the large, bulbous abdomen of the female, and the signature web, which can reach a meter in diameter.
Orb weavers show the greatest range of sizes and appearance than any other family of sipders. Their presence near humans habitation and their conspicuous web probably account for their iconic status among people otherwise uninterested in such matters. Completely harmless to human and their pets, these spider nevertheless inspire fear and loathing. Sadly, I rarely meet a person whose first response to encountering such a creature is not "Kill it!"

Venusta Orchard Spider

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