foto4fun › Portfolio › Black and Yellow Garden Spider Protecting Egg Sac
Black and Yellow Garden Spider Protecting Egg Sacby foto4fun
Found in Iowa last fall. (Re-titled after Pete Costick helped me to identify it.) My brother called my attention to this wonderful creature on the side of his house. We think it died shortly after this picture was taken; it had apparently fulfilled its purpose in the life cycle. We have kept track of the egg sac. Would love any comments…
Hey there, I reckon this is what’s commonly known as a Black & Yellow Garden Spider [Argiope aurantia] Follow this link to Wikipedia Extract on the reproduction cycle: She lays her eggs at night on a sheet of silky material, then covers them with another layer of silk, then a protective brownish silk. She then uses her legs to form the sheet into a ball with an upturned neck. Egg sacs range from 5/8" to 1" in diameter. She often suspends the egg sac right on her web, near the center where she spends most of her time. Each spider produces from one to four sacs with perhaps over a thousand eggs inside each. She guards the eggs against predation as long as she is able. However, as the weather cools, she becomes more frail, and dies around the time of the first hard frost.
In the spring, the young spiders exit the sac and are so tiny that their collection of bodies look like dust gathered inside the silk mesh. Some of the spiderlings remain nearby, but others exude a strand of silk that gets caught by the breeze, carrying the spiderling to a more distant area.
Hope this helps and is of interest, great image and thanks for entering in Arachnids Group.
Thanks so much for this information. How interesting! I’ll pass this information on to my brother who called my attention to this amazing sight. I have another picture that shows the upturned neck of the egg sac that is mentioned in the extract. I’m very grateful for your taking the time to share information about this spider with me.
Comments
Hey there, I reckon this is what’s commonly known as a Black & Yellow Garden Spider [Argiope aurantia]
Follow this link to Wikipedia
Extract on the reproduction cycle: She lays her eggs at night on a sheet of silky material, then covers them with another layer of silk, then a protective brownish silk. She then uses her legs to form the sheet into a ball with an upturned neck. Egg sacs range from 5/8" to 1" in diameter. She often suspends the egg sac right on her web, near the center where she spends most of her time. Each spider produces from one to four sacs with perhaps over a thousand eggs inside each. She guards the eggs against predation as long as she is able. However, as the weather cools, she becomes more frail, and dies around the time of the first hard frost.
In the spring, the young spiders exit the sac and are so tiny that their collection of bodies look like dust gathered inside the silk mesh. Some of the spiderlings remain nearby, but others exude a strand of silk that gets caught by the breeze, carrying the spiderling to a more distant area.
Hope this helps and is of interest, great image and thanks for entering in Arachnids Group.
Thanks so much for this information. How interesting! I’ll pass this information on to my brother who called my attention to this amazing sight. I have another picture that shows the upturned neck of the egg sac that is mentioned in the extract. I’m very grateful for your taking the time to share information about this spider with me.
– foto4fun
Congrats…..featured work
Thanks so much for featuring my spider. I’m very grateful.
– foto4fun
ann this sure is something wow I need a camera like yours