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FAMILY ARANEIDAE - Orb Web Spiders
This page contains pictures and information about Ord Web Spiders (Family Araneidae) that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Orb Web
Araneidae is a large family. They can be small to large in side. All species in this family, if they make webs, they make vertical or horizontal orb webs. Some species construct some sort of stabilizer in the center of the web. Some members in this family do not make web at all. All of them have eight eyes.
Their body and legs are usually hairy. It is believed that those hair are their major sensors, as the eyes to human, to sense the world. They extend their sense of touch by using their web as wall. The spider reacts to loud noise, so do not speak loudly when watching spider. The spider on its web will ignore the strong wind but will react to your slight blow towards it. Most web weaver spiders are blind, or at least with very poor eye sight. They will not react to the light of torch, or even the flash of camera. But they can distinguish day and night. We seldom see spiders build their webs during day time. More facts on spiders can be find in this page.
Most of us have the experience of walk into a big sticky spiders web. Suddenly covered by the sticky silk, we would be quite certain that the spider is now crawling on our body and we will immediately trying to jump and brush ourselves to get rid of the potentially harmful spider. However, the poor spider at this time should be more frighten than you, and most likely it has either dropped onto the ground or rushed up to a near by retreat.
Followings listed the Orb Web Spiders that we found.
Subfamily Araneinae
- Garden Orb-weaver
- Eriophora transmarina, leg to leg 50mm
- This spider also called Wheelweaving Spider or Orbweaving Spider. This is the most common spider in our area. We can easily find them from 5mm size to 50mm size in our garden. We have recorded how they build their webs and how they capture their prey on another pages. Garden Orb-weavers have their abdominal pattern highly variable. To see the different pattern that we collected, click here.
- Scorpion-tailed Spider
- Arachnura higginsii, body length 20mm
- We some time find this Scorpion-tailed Spider in our back yard. It is golden yellow in colour. Its abdomen is long and slender, like a scorpion. Like most other members in this family, it build circuit web. It stay at the middle of the web in day and night. More information click this page.
- Triangular Spiders
- Arkys lancearius, female, male, body length 10mm
- This is a beautiful spider. We can easily find them in bush land in Brisbane, although we never saw it in our backyard. Its abdomen is triangular to heart-shaped , with white spots on its bright orange body. Its two pairs of front legs are with strong spines for catching prey. Its two hind pairs legs are very small. Although they are in this family, which is famous in web building, they do not build webs. They only use their silk for safety lines and egg sacs. Usually female has a bigger abdomen.
- Tent Spider
- Cyrtophora moluccensis, leg to leg 50mm
- Tent Spiders are very common in Brisbane garden. They have silver patterns on their body, some with yellow background colour, some are red and some are blue. They build tent shaped webs between plants and bushes. Their tent shaped webs are easily recognized, up to 60cm in diameter. The spider sit upside down in the middle of the tent from day to night. Sometimes we can see a few of the Tent Spiders build their tent webs joined together and cover an area of a few meters. More pictures and information please click here.
- Russian Tent Spider
- Cyrtophora hirta, leg to leg 12mm
- The Russian Tent Spider is rarely seen compared with Tent Spider. It builds a peaked web like a Russian tent and the tent is about 25cm in size. The spider has a white abdomen, brown head and brown legs. We recorded how Russian Tent Spider builds its tent shaped web on another page. In day time the spider hides inside the middle of the tent, where there is also the eggs sac, which is covered with messy silk and plant materials. Above and below the tent are messy tangles of threads.
- St Andrew's Cross Spider
- Argiope keyserlingi, leg to leg female 50mm, male 20mm
- St Andrew's cross spider is easily found in Brisbane. It is easily recognized by the pattern on its body and its web. The spider makes an orb web, in the middle it makes four thickened zigzag strips in the shape of a cross of 'X'. This is why it called St Andrew's cross spider. The spider then hangs head down with its legs pairs together over the cross. This is believed that the zigzag is used as the sign to warn-off the larger animals, such as about 5mm in body length while the female adults are 10mm in length. More information in the St Andrew's Cross Spider page.
- Banded Orb-weaving Spiders
- Argiope trifasciata, leg to leg female 50mm, male 10mm
- Banded Orb-weaving Spiders sometimes may be confused with St Andrew's Cross Spiders. They look similar although the pattern on their abdomen are quite different. Banded Orb-weaving Spider females have yellow, white and brown colours bands across their abdomen. However, their males are look the same, much smaller than the female. More information and pictures please click here.
Subfamily Arkyinae
Subfamily Cyrtophorinae
Subfamily Argiopinae
Subfamily Cyrtarachninae
- Two-spined Spider
- Poecilopachys australasia, body size 8mm
- Two-spined Spiders build orb webs at night but hide under leaves during day time. They are not easy to find. Their body is brown with a yellow stripe. There is two white spines at the back look like eyes. This spider state in our garden for the whole summer.
Subfamily Mastophorinae
Subfamily Gasteracanthinae
- Jewel Spider, Spiny Spyder
- Austracantha minax (Gasteracantha minax), Body length 12mm
- Jewel Spiders are also known as Christmas Spiders and Spiny Spiders. They can be found in Summer, around Christmas time in Brisbane. Their abdomen has bright yellow and white patterns on black back ground. They build vertical orb web about one meter about ground. More information and pictures please click here.
- Wrap-around Spider
- Photo: Kevin McCready, New South Wales
- Dolophones conifera, body length 20mm
- When this spider rests on a brown twig as it normally does, it is very hard to be noticed. This afternoon it (2nd picture) makes a mistake to rest on a green leaf so we can easily find it. The Warp-around spiders are so called because of their concave abdomen curved in such a way that when the spider rests on a twig, it fits well and wrap around the twig. The spiders are brown in colour and rest during the day. They build large vertical orb web at night.
TRIBE Dolophonini
TRIBE Poltyini
- Tree-Stump Spider
- Poltys illepidus, body length 15mm
- Please advise if you can identify any of them. Thank you.
- Pan Spider
- ? sp. leg to leg 15mm
- The Pan Spiders are pale brown to dark grey in colour. We can easily find this spider in Brisbane Botanic Gardens, however we cannot find out what species is this spider. The spiders build web similar to Tent Spiders with different shape. Instead of tent-shaped web, Pan Spiders' webs are in pan shape. So we call them Pan Spiders. More information and pictures please click here.
- Leaf Nesting Spider
- ? sp., leg to leg 25mm
- We found this spiders once in our backyard during late summer. It curled a large green leaf as retreat. In day time its hided in the retreat. It rested at the middle of the web at night. There is a thread from the centre of its web linked to its retreat. So even when it hided in its retreat, it sensed by the link thread if there was prey get caught in it web. More pictures and information please click here.
- Spider species 1 not identified yet.
- ?sp., body length 6mm
- We only find this spider once in our backyard. The spider is white to transparent in colour, with two bright white spots on brown pattern on abdomen. Its legs are relatively small. The spider build orb web so we put it in this family. Its web is about 30cm in diameter, 45 degree to horizontal.
- Spider species 2 not identified yet.
- ?sp., body length 8mm
- This spider builds vertical orb web with one single stabilimentum. There are many of them on the hill top of Toohey Forest.
- Spider species 3 not identified yet.
- ?sp., leg to leg 20mm
- This spider build orb web on tree trunk. When disturbed, they vibrate the web very quickly and they become almost invisible.
