In the warm temperatures of spring, the juvenile orb weaver spiders emerge and immediately begin spinning their own smaller orb webs. Just one sac can contain upwards of several hundred eggs. When the weather begins getting colder in the later months of fall, the female orb weaver spider lays her egg sacs in silky cocoons hidden away in foliage. Once they have mated, the female orb weaver spider oftentimes eats the smaller male. While females spend most of their lives spinning webs, males mostly wander in search of a mate and might not even spin a web at all. If you happen to spot an orb weaver spider, it is most likely a female, since males are always on the move. Once the wasp has locked on, it will paralyze the orb weaver spider before feeding it to younger wasps as live prey. Wasps, their main predator, often mimic the vibrations of a struggling insect to lure the spider back to the web. However, orb weaver spiders must be careful when approaching the web. This alerts the orb weaver to go back to either eat the prey or repair the web. Most of the orb weaver spider’s 12-month lifespan is spent spinning their web.If they do venture off their silk, they stay attached with a trap line, which vibrates if something flies into it. These spiders are not aggressive, nor are they hunters, so they spend most days waiting for prey on their webs or hiding in a nearby tree branch, leaf, or grassy area. They spend most nights repairing their webs, or even eating a previously made web and making a new one.

Areas that orb weaver spiders live in include: However, they tend to stay in locations that will be frequented by their prey and have enough structures to support their webs. With thousands of different species across many different ecosystems, the habitat of an orb weaver spider can be nearly anywhere: gardens, grasslands, cities, and more. In their natural habitat, these spiders can generally be found facing downwards in the center of their web waiting for an insect to fly into the silk. Orb weaver spiders leverage their massive webs to sustain their diet of small insects and invertebrates. Orb spiders spin complex, organized webs that can reach up to three feet in diameter using radial strands of silk that look like spokes on a wheel. While it is difficult to distinguish orb weaver spiders based on their appearance, a dead giveaway that one is nearby is their large, circular webs. However, depending on the species, the colors and shape can be much different. Spiny orb weaver spiders are often brightly colored with a yellow or white abdomen, black spots, and red spines. With six pointed spines poking out of their oval-shaped abdomen, spiny orb weaver spiders are often called crab spiders because their crustacean-looking shell. Spiny orb weaver spiders look much differentfrom any other spider in the family. Sometimes, garden orb weavers can even be spotted with a white or brown dorsal stripe. Their fat, roughly triangular abdomens are usually reddish-brown or grey with a leaf-shaped pattern. Garden Orb Weaver SpiderĬommonly seen in the United States, garden orb weaver spiders are typically between 1.5-3 centimeters in body length. Because of this variability, it is difficult to differentiate orb weaver spiders from other orb weaver species and even other spider families. Almost all the different species vary in color and shape. The orb weaver spider family is the third largest in the world.

Spider bites