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Comments & ID Thoughts
About 2cm long, excluding legs. Seen in Plano, TX, (+33°,-96°), weather was sunny and humid, temperature ~34C. Observed outside window in the shade. There appears to be a spiral of fiber behind the spider; perhaps a filament of web?
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Jul 16, 2024
- Photographed: Jul 16, 2024
- Spider: Argiope aurantia (Black and Yellow Garden Spider)
- Location: Plano , Texas, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.),High foliage (includes trees and tree trunks)
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
Sep 16, 2025
Sep 16, 2025
Big Sandy, 
After I posted the photo, I scrolled through some of the pictures of spiders on this site. Based on what I saw, I’m tentatively identifying this as an Argiope aurantia, a black and yellow garden spider, one of the orb weavers.
You got it! The zigzag part of the web is called a stabilimentum. That’s the term for silk additions to a spider web in addition to the basic web. Her spinnerets have muscular attachments that allow her to change the direction that the liquid silk comes out. To do the zig zag the spider moves the spinnerets side to side. Spiders have a lot of control in making webs, I think it’s interesting. Thickness, strength, stickyness, and added pheromones are some of the things they can control.