Garden Spider

Garden Spider, Araneus diadematus, in front of my house in Hayes.  10 September 2011.

I have already posted some spiders this year; Tegenaria gigantea and Pholcus phalangoides among others. But those aren't the only ones I photographed. I got some good shots of this Garden Spider, probably our commonest orb web spinner. The specimen above lived at the bottom of my front steps. Here's another photo that shows the cross-shaped pattern on its abdomen more clearly.

Garden Spider, Araneus diadematus, in front of my house in Hayes.  10 September 2011.

It's really a beautiful creature, and of course it is carnivorous. In the next shot, a different specimen I saw in a nearby wood, you see it has been wrapping a victim, which might have been another spider. You can see from the web and the way its claws are placed that it has been spinning the creature to wrap it in the silk from its spinnerets, which you can't see but which are at the tip of its abdomen.

Garden Spider, Araneus diadematus, wrapping a victim.  West Wickham Common, 22 September 2011.

Orb web spiders rely on their sense of touch to detect prey in their webs, so do not need large eyes. You can see that although it has eight eyes, they are all quite small. It only has two mandibles, but they are quite large!

I will post some more spiders soon.