A few weeks ago we found this very big spider setting up camp in the corner of our garage door. Thanks to google and Enature we learned it is an Araneidae, Orb Weavers.

Fortunately, there aren’t too many kinds of spiders in these parts that bite so I figure, if this leggy gal’s not going to bite anyone, I will leave her be.  (But if you are a brown recluse, I’m going to go all Rambo on you!)

Anyways… This critter hung out on the corner of the garage door for well over a week. Watching it was fascinating. I’d check on her each day. As I read, I learned that first the female fills a spherical egg sac, (up to 1 inch  wide), with tough brown papery cover, attaches it to one side of web, close to her resting position, then dies. Eggs hatch in the autumn, young overwinter in sac, then make their way out into the world in the spring. I think that’s probably why she was so still toward the end of her time at our house. The sac was finished and she was in her final hours.

We could tell the male had been there because the male builds web in outlying part of female’s web, making a white zigzag band vertically across the middle.

We learned they like shrubbery, tall plants and gardens, preferably in a sunny spot with little to no wind. So if you find one of these critters hanging out at your house, at least you know that these colorful spiders are pretty safe.