Login
Register
Comments & ID Thoughts
Early one Summer morning, I was on a path of low shrubs on the edge of a forest and there were hundreds of these webs. I'm thinking they were Tetragnatha of some variety.
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Jan 27, 2024
- Photographed: Jul 13, 2005
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Somers, New York, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Low foliage (shrubs, herbs, garden, excluding flowers)
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
Is it horizontal? That would suggestfamily Tetragnathidae, as you suggested. https://spiderid.com/spider/tetragnathidae/
I think they are the only family of orbweavers that walk perpendicular to horizontal webs. Leucauge venusta is a species in the family in our area, but Tetragnatha are more populous. I’ll check for web images, I remember other people finding hundreds of orb webs
This isn’t quite it, but very cool! The blanket of webbing lets Tetragnatha
spiders engage in a mating “party” underneath, one expert said. See the photos from Aitoliko, Greece.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/09/20/spiderweb-aetoliko-greece-blankets-beach-tetragnatha-spiders/1368944002/
I think the Leucage venusta is a strong possibility because in the middle picture you can see the green legs.
I was wondering if all those outer bands close together indicates a particular species.
I think it is just a web under construction.
Like other Tetragnathae..Leucauge will drop off the web at the slightest hint of a disturbance. It’s likely the spider building this web was interrupted in its work. Unlike a lot of other orb weavers, they can’t monitor their web from a distance using a signal strand of web. But when they drop…they use a safety strand attached to the web…to allow them to get back up to it.