Pics or Video that make you say WTF?!

[TheSNakE]

That thing is weird. I can only see 6 legs, and the abdomen is huge and I can barely see the cephalothorax. At first I thought it could be a tick, but I can't tell. I wish I had more pictures.

[Predator24]

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Sorry but the others are too blurry. I assure you that it was a spider with 8 legs. It's web was fucking huge and was catching bis ass moths and shit.

The body (or what I call it's butt) was about 1" long and 1/2"wide to give you some perspective.

[DeaconBlues]

[/quote]

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It's a European Cross Spider...



The European garden spider (Araneus diadematus), diadem spider, or cross spider, is a very common and well-known orb-weaver spider in Western Europe. Araneus diadematus also lives in parts of North America, in a range extending from New England and the Southeast to California and the Northwestern United States and adjacent parts of Canada.

Individual spiders' colouring can range from extremely light yellow to very dark grey, but all European garden spiders have mottled markings across the back with five or more large white dots forming a cross. The white dots result from cells that are filled with guanine, which is a byproduct of protein metabolism.[1]

The third pair of legs of garden spiders are specialized for assisting in the spinning of orb webs. These spiders also use them to move around on their web without getting stuck. These legs are useful only in the web; while on the ground, these legs are of little value.

Garden spiders have been known to stridulate when threatened.

Since this tends to be a passive animal, it is difficult to provoke to bite - but if it does, the bite is just slightly unpleasant and completely harmless to humans.

The webs are built by the larger females who usually lie head down on the web, as in this photo, waiting for prey to get entangled in the web. The prey is then quickly captured and wrapped in silk before being eaten. Orb Spiders are said to eat their webs each night along with many of the small insects stuck to it. They have been observed doing this within a couple of minutes. A new web is then spun in the morning.

The much smaller male will approach the female cautiously in order to mate.
If not careful, he could end up being eaten by her.

I'm link incompetent...I pulled the info from wikadik...

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[TheSNakE]

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The more I look at it, the more it looks a spider but it's hard to tell what kind. Was the web an orb weavers web suspended in the air like a net, or was it a thick web like a mat? I assume you saw this in the NE US?

[ThatHaole]

[TheSNakE]

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It's a European Cross Spider...


I'm link incompetent...I pulled the info from wikadik...

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[/quote]

Good call DB. It looks really close that's for sure.

[Predator24]

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I can't stand spiders and this one really caught me off guard but just hung out above it's web that was connected to the deck flood lights and aluminum siding attached to the slider door. It would hide in the crevice there and wait. I would purposely leave the flood lights on at night while I was at home so it would get it's fill of bugs attracted to the light.

The web was never taken down or eaten by her and one day, she was just gone. It was from one of those chilly nights we had in early October before we had our annual Indian Summer. I've never seen one up close that was so large before.

[The Godfather]