Musings

Untangled web*

garden_spider_posing.jpg

A garden spider is guarding our tomatoes. We did manage to harvest a bunch of the golden pear tomatoes (which, I understand, are a variety of cherry tomato) without disturbing her (males are tiny in comparison).

WikiPee says garden spiders are Argiope aurantia, and they’re native to the New World. It also says their webs are 2-8 feet off the ground. This one was just above the ground, however, and in a very protected place.

These spiders are large (or at least the females are) and make large webs, so they’re fun to photograph.

I don’t know what the deal is with the zig-zag white line through the middle of the web, which has the fancy name of stabilimentum (plural: stabilimenta), apparently because somebody thought it reinforced the web, although the function continues to be debated.

* Apologies to Sir Walter Scott, but this web is not tangled….