Picture of the Day: The golden orb spider

In the last few months we made too many pictures but we have not updated our photo gallery so often.  To solve this problem we had the idea: why not regularly post one of our pictures on the blog?

So here is the first ‘picture of the day’ in the series:  this golden orb-weaving spider. It is often seen in parks or in bush area in Sydney during summer time. This season – late summer/ beginning of autumn – is the time for her female to lay her egg.

These spiders are a bit frightening for the first time but they bite rarely. They use to weave a web with a golden colour, which is especially apparent in the sunshine.  The web is so big, that it not only catches insects for food, but sometimes small birds as well…Yeah, it is a bit funny when you are going on the footpath and the orb is just only a half meter above your head… The female is much larger than the male: her body has the size of a knuckle and with the black legs with golden bends it reaches the size of the palm of my hand. This and this websites contain more information about these spiders.