Gravid Arachnid

Specifically, a female Araneus diadematus/Cross Orbweaver spider in our front yard, who soon will be spinning an egg sac of golden silk and depositing the 100-800 eggs that are swelling her abdomen. The bright yellow spiderlings will emerge from the egg sac next spring.

Cross Orbweavers are native to Europe and were introduced to the North American continent many years ago. Their name derives from the pattern of white spots on the abdomen that forms a cross. Cross Orvweavers sit head-down in the center of their wheel-like orb web, and typically eat their webs every night, recycling the proteins and water to build a fresh web on the following day.

(I’m posting at 10:25pm on Thursday, September 19; if you’re in the UK or Europe, reading this on Friday, September 20, while I’m still asleep in the early morning hours, I hope you’ll come back to my journal in late afternoon. I’ll be posting my last backblip from our Iceland trip, for September 12, shortly after I get up on Friday morning -- late afternoon your time -- and I think you’ll enjoy the featured photo and others in the Flickr stream even more than this beautiful spider! )