in the video we’ve got a Poltys illepidus, which I nearly walked by but thought the clump of debris was suspiciously symmetrical, a tell for a disguised creature. unfortunately I didn’t have my camera on hand to get a closer look at its camouflage.
next is Talthybia depressa, which looks like an algae-covered knot on a tree trunk from the front…
but its underbelly is a riot of stripes and orange highlights!
and Parawixia dehaani, which was just about everywhere at night. thankfully I never took one of their webs to the face
The tropical orbweaver (Eriophora ravilla) is a widespread species found from the warmer parts of the southern US down to South America.
Unlike some other orbweavers, E. ravilla is strictly nocturnal, tearing down and consuming its web before hiding every morning and rebuilding it remarkably fast in the evening. Walk down a trail in Florida at dusk and you’ll likely find your return path blocked by large webs that weren’t there just a few minutes prior. This behavior likely helps them avoid detection by day-flying spider wasps that might otherwise use the web locate them.
A beautiful Jewel Spider (Austracantha minax). Endemic to Australia, and the sole species of the genus Austracantha.
These macros turned out surprisingly good, considering she was moving around so much. I like that you can see her feet hooked around the strands of silk as she's climbing.
found an extremely unhappy lady in one of my mealybug traps. Araneus sp, maybe gemmoides, idk. cleaned as much of the glued up silk off her legs as i could and let her out into the green belt by my lab. gl in the world
[PHOTOS TAKEN: SEPTEMBER 8TH, 2023 | Image IDs: Three photos of a black, brown, and yellow, yellow garden spider in its web, the third of which focuses in on the zig-zag shape in the structure of its web /End IDs.]
There's a reason these little guys are also called zig zag spiders ^^
Argiope florida is a large orbweaver endemic to dry scrubland habitats in Florida and a few other parts of the southeast. Like several other Argiope species, they have silvery coloration that reflects solar radiation and prevents the spider from overheating while sitting exposed in its web.
They were so abundant in this scrubland on the Lake Wales sand ridge in central Florida that it was sometimes hard to move around because their webs blocked every gap in the oak shrubs.