| I
don't expect photography journals to beat a path to my
door to purchase the rights to the
picture at right. It's blurred and well, pretty awful.
But it does show how yellow these golden orb webs can
be with this type of spider, which explains their name.
That's not to say they all make a web like this. Some
of them look pretty much like every other spider web.
To see if you've found one with good colour, it helps
to look at it in good sunlight, and ideally view it edge-on
like in this photo. The colour can sometimes be remarkable.
A female Nephila
ornata. That
tiny thing at the top of photo is the male! You'll see
that he's offered a small amount of protection from the
female by being on the other side of
the web.
With some types of spiders there is a
difference in size between the males and females. Nephila
ornata has taken this idea almost to the point of a joke.
The picture at right shows you what I mean. That big thing
filling the picture is the female. The male is at the top
of the photo and he's so small you might need to click
on the photo to get a better view. You'd almost think those
two spiders were different species.
These spiders will often form large clusters
of webs, usually high up but sometimes at our face-level.
If you do walk into one of their webs you will be pleased
to know that these are not considered to be dangerous to
people.
Nephila ornata spiders
often form huge clusters of webs, in places
like mangroves or power lines. The biggest cluster I've seen must
have had hundreds of mature spiders. At times like these you can
be thankful that they're harmless |
A mature female
Nephila ornata is a big spider. These spiders also have
very strong silk. They hang around in the centres of
their webs and you'll often see the dried-up husks of
prey hanging in neat rows like a bunch of trophies. You
can see that in the photo directly above. As you'd expect
from a Golden orb weaver, their egg sacs (seen
in the picture below) are a beautiful golden yellow.
Proud mum: A
mature female Nephila ornata spider stands over her
egg sac |
|
