I’m amazed at the size and intricacy of the webs of the Yellow Garden Orbweaver spiders (Argiope aurantia) whenever I see them at Huntley Meadows Park here in Alexandria, VA. This past weekend I had a chance to see how effective these webs are when a bee flew into the web of a spider that I was observing.
Previously I posted some photos of these spider with prey (a grasshopper and a cicada) that had been captured earlier and wrapped up in silk, but I didn’t really understand how the spider accomplished this. In this case, as soon as the bee touched the web, the spider moved quickly from the center of the web and in a few seconds had wrapped up its newest victim. I was so fascinated by what was happening in front of my eyes that my reaction time was delayed and I missed photographing those initial actions. However, I stayed and observed (and photographed) the spider’s subsequent actions.
The first photo below shows the spider as she is wrapping up the wrapping up of the bee. It’s a little hard to believe that the long package is just a bee, but I’m pretty sure that’s all that there is inside. (With all three photos, you can click on them and get a somewhat higher resolution view.) After the bee had finished, she left the package at the periphery of the web and returned to the center of the web, where she usually resides, probably hoping for another victim.
After several minutes wait, she returned to the bee and and began to transport it to the center of the web. In the photo below, you can see how she held the wrapped-up bee with some of her legs as she crawled along the strands of the web. The zigzag portion of the web is part of the path that leads to the center.
Once she was back in the center, it looks like she was preparing to eat her newly captured meal. I really like the varied positions of her legs in this photo as she holds on to her prey.
You may have noticed the blurry contours of another, smaller spider in the upper portion of the final photo. There were two small spiders hanging around the web and they seemed to be fighting with one another. I tried to capture that dynamic and will post a photo if I find one that is clear enough. I suspect that one of them may have been the mate of the female spider. Bugguide notes that the male of this species is considerably smaller than the female. Not counting legs, the male is usually 5-6 mm in size and the female is 14-25mm. I am not sure who the “other guy” was. Maybe he’s another male competing for the affections of this “lovely” lady. Any ideas?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 