Araneus diadematus
I took this picture a few weeks ago in my garden, and I was reminded of it by a picture shown to me today by a 8 year old boy from Canada who wanted to know what kind of spider that was. It was the same species as the one in my picture.
Its name is Araneus diadematus because of the white marks on the top of its abdomen, which resemble a cross.
They make beautiful, perfectly round webs and they take good care of them, keeping them very clean, and If it feels threatened, it starts to shake its web furiously to try to scare you away. It’s cute.
This is a very common spider in North America and Europe, but not in South America, so I had never seen one of this “in person” before. It was a very special day for me! But then whenever you find a spider larger than 1 cm in Chicago, it is a very special day.
The A. diadematus is not a dangerous spider, they are pretty friendly and it’s difficult to make it so angry that it wants to bite you. Most spiders are like that. Their poison is just too precious for them, they don’t want to waste it on something that they can’t eat. If an A.diadematus bites you, though, don’t worry, their poison is completely harmless to us humans, it’s just going to be red and itchy for a few days… or so I hear :)
Araneus diadematus by The Bug Lady, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Tags: arachnid, araneus diadematus, orb weaver, spider
