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Comments & ID Thoughts
Black and light yellow striped thorax (like a bumblebee).
Thorax looks hard.
2 small fangs beneath head.
End of tips of bottom legs are red in color then as you move closer to the body they become black then baige then black, then finally grey.
When I first saw it the web had thick zig-zag lines coming from out of the 4 directions of the legs. Now there is some thickened web area directly behind the spider, without the zig-zag lines projecting from out of the spider. I saw this as it moved its body, maybe to scratch itself with its legs. The spider was found in a mandarin tree. Is this spider dangerous?
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Mar 28, 2021
- Photographed: Mar 29, 2021
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: WILEY PARK, Australia
- Spotted Outdoors: High foliage (includes trees and tree trunks)
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes:
Looks like a golden orb weaver to me! I don’t know a ton about them, but I have seen people handle them so I wouldn’t guess that they are particularly dangerous.
She is, I think she’s a St. Andrew’s Cross Spider, Argiope keyserlingi. This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to identify one. We have only received 3 other photos of this species. Hint to Local: remember you can click on the Country name to see the most common species of the country. Yes, I’ve handled Argiope spiders gently bare-handed. The bite is said to be relatively painful (for a spider bite), but is not medically significant. https://spiderid.com/spider/araneidae/argiope/keyserlingi/ BugGuide.net frowns on photos of bugs on skin, but sometimes that’s where they happen to be. Justin: The X zigzag lines… Read more »