Saturday, August 30, 2008

Charlotte's Web?




As with all things grand on the property of my friend's Diva's childhood home, I saw this lovely and grand writing spider.She built her web among the overgrown shrubbery. The morning sunlight was shining through her web, so lovely, and I thought she was picture perfect as she waited for breakfast.

2 comments:

Keetha Broyles said...

What is the little zig-zag strip of something she has already caught in her web?????

Leigh of Tales from Bloggeritaville said...

Keetha- there is a link to this type of spiders on this post. This spider is quite large and is indicitive of it's "writing" on it's web, hense the name.
The link offers this info:"Argiope aurantia is commonly known as the "black and yellow garden spider", or "writing spider," after the mistaken idea web stabilimenta were correspondence. Stabilimenta are conspicuous lines or spirals of silk, included by many diurnal spiders at the center of their otherwise cryptic webs. It has been shown spider webs using stabilimenta catch, on average, 34% fewer insects than those without. However, webs with the easily-visible markings are damaged far less frequently by birds flying through the web. It is an evolutionary tradeoff the spider can influence every time it builds a new web. The inclusion of stabilimenta is influenced by many factors, including prey density and web locationThe white patterns are called stabilimentum and reflect UV light. They have been shown to play a role in attracting prey to the web, and possibly to prevent its destruction by large animals".
So to answer your question, no nothing is yet in it's web, it just makes a very elaborate and beautiful web.