Argiope aurantia
(Black and Yellow Garden Spider)

Hi, this is Argiope aurantia, a Black and yellow Garden Spider. It’s a type of orbweaver. The zigzag webs are called stabilimenta (plural is stabilimentum). I think there is a way some species of orbweavers can make their spinnets move as they create web to get this effect. It is not known why it evolved for some orbweavers and not others. It does effectively hide the spider in many instances, at least to human vision, but they existed before we did and we aren’t naturally spider predators. Spiders have a lot of interesting things they can do with their silk,… Read more »