Golden Orb Weaver Spiders

At first glance, it seems like someone was being clumsy when they named a silver spider the Golden Orb Weaver. But that bit about the gold wasn’t refering to the spider. It was refering to the orb.

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.

Web sight: A glance edge-on at the orb web of one of these spiders will often reveal how they got their name

With some types of spiders there’s a difference in size between the males and females. Nephila ornata has taken this idea almost to the point of a joke. The picture above 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 have to look hard to see him. You’d almost think those two spiders were different species.

These spiders will often form themselves and their webs into large clusters, usually high up but sometimes at our face-level. If you do walk into one of their webs you’ll be pleased to know that these are not considered to be dangerous to people.

A mature female Golden Orb Weaver 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, which is a section enlarged from the previous photo. As you’d expect from a Golden Orb Weaver, their egg sacs (seen in the photo below) are a beautiful golden yellow.

Other Golden Orb Weavers

There are other spiders in this group of Nephila spiders and it’s pretty safe to call them Golden Orb Weavers.

In northern Australia some of them can get pretty big, often reaching the size of a man’s hand. Living throughout the tropical north of Australia, these handsome critters make very big — and strong — orb webs. Their web is so strong that some indigenous people have found some clever uses for them. For example, they might swing a stick through their webs, tangling up the spiders and their webs, and use those spidery tangles to lure and trap fish.

These spiders eat insects that get caught in the web, but they have a reputation for eating birds too. With a web so big (over a metre across) and strong it’s not surprising that it could happen. These spiders have been seen feeding on the birds, but I stress that it is not their usual diet.

A large Nephila spider photographed
in northern Queensland

• So, what’s with this ‘Nature Stuff’ then?

Birds

• Indian Mynahs — pushy and invasive
• Noisy Miners — aggression in the suburbs
• Starlings — Another feral pest, or not?
• Australian White Ibis — conservation takes a twist
• Common water birds around Sydney
• Pacific Black Ducks
• Geese teeth — do birds have teeth?
• Rainbow Lorikeets — raucous and colourful
• Sulphur-crested Cockatoos — beautiful birds with an awful call
• Glossy Black Cockatoos — casuarinas’ seed crackers
• Are they Crows or Ravens in Sydney?
• Black Swans — bird emblem of Western Australia
• Brush Turkeys — Cool birds, huge nests
• Darters — comfortable on land, in the air and water
• Australian Pelicans

Trees

• A few big Australian trees
• Unusual and beautiful Australian trees
• Why Australia’s giant trees might never return

Reptiles

• Lizard bite — getting more than you bargained for

Insects and spiders

• One of the longest insects in the world (photos)
• Some common Australian orb-weaving spiders
• Hunstman Spiders
• Fear of Huntsman Spiders
• Golden Orb Weaver Spiders
• How many eyes do spiders have?
• How many eyes do insects have?
• How I catch spiders (to take them outside)
• The amazing net-casting spiders
• Commensal spiders — eating the leftovers
• What is a spider? No, seriously, what makes a spider a spider?
• Jumping spiders

Other stuff

• Book review: Back from the Brink
• So what’s a feral species, really?
• Camouflaged critters — blending in to a scene near you
• Critters in the city
• Fire and the Australian bush
• Cute stuff — critters sure can look cute when they’re little
• Wildlife photography — an unhelpful guide
• Feeding wild animals — is it a good idea?
• Photo Sales — I might have that Australian nature pic you’re looking for
• In pursuit of the waterskiing duck (blog)