northeast-flora-and-fauna

For Throwback Thursday, this is one of our biggest and most prominent orbweaver spiders, a Yellow Garden Spider I met back in 2020 [1]. I actually wanted to link to a post of these large spiders when I was talking about the much smaller Bold Jumping Spider a couple days back, only to realize I hadn't posted about them here [2]! Doing a Throwback Thursday post was the quickest way to remedy this deficiency in the blog. These are 1 of our biggest spiders and are also among our most prominent with their black-and-yellow coloring. While you can get eyestrain looking at a lot of our orbweavers (e.g. Basilica Orbweaver , Marbled Orbweaver , Orchard Orbweaver ), the Yellow Garden Spider is comparably a cinch to spot and ID. Although all spiders are somewhat venomous, the Yellow Garden Spider's venom isn't especially potent. It's generally considered about as bad and dangerous as a bee sting. It's been theorized their black-and-yellow color is an example of aposematism , ...

This Bold Jumping Spider was patrolling the gate that separates Willowwood Arboretum and Bamboo Brook. Unlike this older picture , you can't see the iridescent green chelicerae (kih-LIH-sih-ree) on this Bold Jumping Spider, though I think you can see a little green around the mouth [1]. They also (usually) have a white-to-orange spot on the back of their abdomen [2], though I'd probably consider this more of a gold or dark yellow spot myself. Although the average person would probably classify these spiders as "small", it's probably 1 of our larger jumping spiders. Some of our fishing spiders , grass spiders , and orbweavers can be quite a bit bigger though. I suspect they're considered to be pretty common by jumping spider standards, though it's possible I just see them more because of their larger size. Despite having "bold" in their name, most of the time these spiders seem frightened by me and my camera. I'm sure that by jumping spider ...

For the 2nd year in a row I met a Bold Jumping Spider at Duke Farms' Outdoor Education table. It's probably not the same spider though; it sounds like they only live about 1 year , and only an immature spider from the preceding year should be around the following year. I've got a couple theories why this table is popular with them: Perhaps us humans attract flies or other small prey for them to eat. Or our presence deters obvious predators like mantises or larger spiders. They are considered a fairly abundant spider, so maybe they'd turn up in a careful survey of most outdoor spots. It's a long shot, but maybe they're looking to learn about whatever topic was being covered on this day. 😃 Jumping spiders do have a reputation for braininess . October 15, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 250354260, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here is what I believe to be another Bold Jumping Spider , though this view-from-the-top gives a different perspective from my previous Bold Jumping Spider post . In the picture you don't get much of a view of the chelicerae (the tusk-like appendages near the mouth), though I suspect this particular one had blue chelicerae rather than the easier-to-notice green. My impression is that this one is larger than the one in the previous post. Apparently they're known to be able to subdue prey larger than themselves though I'm not sure what arthropods that puts in play for them. Presumably this is where they got the "bold" part of their name, because they'll "boldly jump on insects that no spider has jumped on before".  The Bold Jumping Spider doesn't use webbing to catch prey, but it does use webbing. One reason it can jump boldly is because they use webbing as a safety line so they can get back to their starting position if they want to. It's not...

Let me introduce you to the Bold Jumping Spider . This little spider was at one of the Duke Farms Outdoor Education events last October. (You never know who you're going to meet at the Outdoor Education events.) Despite the boldness of the name, I do recall the spider disliking the attention of my camera, and it took a few tries before I got a reasonable picture. Like with a lot of spiders, the females are generally larger than the males, though neither will be mistaken for a tarantula. (Despite both being hairy spiders, the tarantulas and the jumping spiders are distinct spider families.) I suspect that the prominent pair of iridescent green chelicerae (kih-LIH-sih-ree) helped greatly in getting this spider identified. They are the mouthparts of spiders, and in some spiders resemble fangs. The reddish spot on the abdomen (I didn't get a good view of that in my picture) also helped. Jumping spiders get their name from their style of hunting; basically they hope to get close ...