Golden silk orb weaver spider
Golden silk orb weaver spider, 4-5 inches toe-to-toe.
Mala Mala and Kruger National Park, South Africa— Spiders were an everpresant danger to a number of our safari group, to the extent that they’d rather lose a leopard we were tracking than drive through the web of a golden orb weaver. Conversely, other members of the group designated one of our four Range Rovers “the bug car,” devoting significant time to examining insect and reptile life under rocks and logs.
The golden silk orb weaver spider spins its web between two trees or shrubs—seemingly every two trees or shrubs in the bush. So plowing through its webs was unavoidable on our off-road hunts. Our vehicles, lacking windshields, had only an antenna to break the webs—and our faces, of course.
Female weaver's web catches a praying mantis. Male comes running...for dinner? Good example of sexual dimorphism: large female, small male.
The screams and wails of the fearful ones were a contrast to their calm excitement five feet from hungry lions, a yard from a hunting leopard. One of the arachnophobes easily handled a six-inch millipede, and tasted a fried grub. I guess for some, spiders are just directly hot-wired to the ick response, and no logic applies.
The golden orb spider is a large, striking arachnid that spins an impressive web of strong yellow silk. Its main bridge line can span 30 or more feet, and feels like fishing line. African kids wrap and roll it into yellow rope bracelets.
Red bill quilia trapped in a golden orb web.
Twice, we came upon a bird caught in a web, flapping helplessly. Caving in to pleas from some of our group, our rangers, two different ones, freed the birds. Yes, they’d otherwise be spider dinner.
The web is so strong and sticky that fishermen use it to make nets. They bend a branch into a teardrop shape and wave it back and forth through the golden orb weaver’s web.
Despite those who scream eek, we drove through hundreds of webs. Only a few spiders got into the vehicle. None clamped onto anyone’s face. None climbed into anyone’s shirt. Etc.
Instead, most of the victimized spiders ran into the shrubs at one end of their bridge lines. They would then eat the silk of their ruined webs and spin new ones with recycled material within hours.
Spiders seeming to hang in mid-air. The webs are easy to walk into.
Photo by Josh Oakley
Strong, sticky, yellow web silk.
Scariness in proportion to size.
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8 comments for now
Same size as the wolf spiders we had in Suriname, but I don’t know where the wolf spiders made webs. We’d see them on the walls inside our house. Killed them with machete until we realized they ate the mosquitos, etc. Good spider…
21 Mar 2009 at 6:32 am
Great story! I will pass it on to all my arachnophobic friends. Sort of bragging rights for what I endured!
21 Mar 2009 at 7:45 pm
Good story. Too bad the web does not show in the photo of the trapped bird. Maybe photo shop could bring it out.Re. the comment above: only one small group of wolf spiders make webs. Most just hunt on the ground. I’ve never seen a wolf spider on a wall. Bet it was some other type of large spider.
30 Apr 2009 at 9:28 am
These spiders are also in abundance in Sandveld Nature reserve Free State.
22 May 2009 at 11:44 am
What magnificent samples of the Golden Orb-Weaver (Nephila clavipes). Poor tourists, I bet they dreamt of the large spiders in their large webs. I have a lady like this in my back yard and every now and then I just watch her do her thing. Pitty mine doesn’t have a boyfriend.
25 May 2009 at 8:58 am
Lustrous golden cloth made from undyed silk. Spectacular exhibit of golden orb weavers’ fabric at the American Museum of Natural History.
29 Sep 2009 at 9:58 am
What an astounding story! I remember the size of those webs, and the size of the spiders as well. But I never dreamed that fabric could be made from the webs. Amazing.
29 Sep 2009 at 5:03 pm
I am terrified of spiders and when this “little” critter made its web right outside my kithen window, I almost freaked. My husband, John, and our children were very pleased and excited about the new tenant.
30 Mar 2010 at 11:40 pm