Spiderday - Odds and Ends for the Garden

Here are a few odds and ends from the garden.

This first gal is Argiope aurantia aka the yellow garden spider. I usually see one or two in the fall around here. They have an interesting zig zag in the middle of their web to fortify its strength for larger insects like June beetles and dragonflies.

Here is an Orchard Spider (Leucauge venusta). They are another type of orb weaver that usually build their webs on the lower levels of shrubs and plants. They are another good way to keep the flies away from the garden.

Here is a harvestman in the family Opiliones. These are strange spiders that will hunt for tiny insects but they also eat plant matter and fungi and don't really have any venom like a spider. Whatever insects they are eating must be very tiny, and I wonder how they even find them with their tiny eyes.

This looks to be Castianeira longipalpis also known as an ant mimic spider. They walk fast like an ant and are barely larger than an ant.

As you can guess these guys feed primarily on ants, but they will also eat aphids as well.

Here is a juvenile phidippus audax.

These are commonly called daring jumping spiders. Their method of hunting is to launch themselves onto their prey. Their favorite food is the common house fly but they will attack anything around that size as well. I was able to trick this one into jumping on my hand for the photo. They are smart and have amazing eyesight and can navigate through all sorts of obstacles to get to their prey.

I think this is a very tiny recently hatched Platycryptus undatu.

I found this one on my window sill and it looked like a jumping grain of sand. I managed to get it to jump onto a plate where I was able to get a photo. Eventually it will grow into a medium sized jumping spider.

That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)