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Comments & ID Thoughts
Orchard Spider
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Oct 10, 2019
- Photographed: Oct 10, 2019
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Mt.Horeb , Wisconsin, United States
- Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.)
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes:
Yes she is. Her Latin name is Leucauge venusta.
Concur. One of my favorite species, and this is a terrific photo.
I found one in my backyard and I wondered why her abdomen was so big and beautiful.
I have a book, ” Spiders of North America – an identification manual ” – that explains the etymology of every taxonomic genus name used for spiders. Let me know if you want one looked up. Knowing what the person who named the spider had in mind helps me tie the spider to the name. Darwin started the Leucauge genus name. It is derived from a Greek word for, “dipped in silver” and modified to mean, “light, bright, clear, and white.” I’m so unfailingly nerdy! I just edited this little geeky tidbit because I could not let it pass without… Read more »
I started keeping a journal just for stuff I wanted to remember about spiders, like how to tell them apart by their eye arrangements and good places to find Jumping Spiders. Also, I know it’s not scientifically accurate, but my opinion is that Jumping Spiders are so awesome that they should have their own suborder. I love the way they rub their pedipalps against their chelicerae. It looks so cute!
https://spiderid.com/picture/91353/ I don’t know if you saw this awesome jumping spider photo. Bugguide has eye arrangement charts. I tried doing a journal on paper but I keep my spider stuff in my photos app now with my spider photos. I use the built-in drawing app on my iPad to write and draw on spider photos to make notes of features. I type locations, dates, and species onto my photos with PXLR. I put the species name in a margin of the photo that can be cropped off if the name changes or if I misidentified it. When I have enough… Read more »
I use my duplicate spider photos to post on GoogleMaps. If you found a spider in a park you can post a photo of it in the Googlemaps entry for the location. I add a caption to identify the spider too. They get hundreds of views in just a couple of days. I like your journal idea. It can get really confusing trying to hold all of these things in your memory. There’s a reason my Biology professors made us draw and label everything we saw. I still remember many organisms’ body parts from drawing them.
Yeah, it’s getting close to winter and winter is really cold where I live, so all of the spiders, especially Jumpers (which are my favorites) go hide in their nooks and crannies. It’s been harder to find spiders outside recently, but inside there are more and more coming.
It is sad when the time of year comes when I resort to studying the spiders in my house in too much detail. At least I found a new-to-me cricket on today’s hike. I settle for insects as the next best thing.
Also, cool, I live in Wisconsin!