• Late2TheParty@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

    I was always stoked to run into their cousins in, like, the US states Georgia and South Carolina. So bright! Such cool webs.

    • quinacridone@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      And proper webs too! Nice and prominent with the owner sat in the middle :)

      The day after I took this photo we came back for another walk, just as a bee unfortunately flew into the web. I was going to try and rescue the bee, but it would have been covered in web and basically doomed anyway…so we let the spider deal with it

      Here’s all the action https://lemmy.ml/post/4729765

  • fiat_lux@kbin.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    Very pretty, even if orb-weavers always trigger my flight response hard with their chunky physiques and tapered thin legs.

    Darn you biology, let me appreciate my neighbours more.

    • quinacridone@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      1 year ago

      They don’t bother me like that, probably because I know that they’re always outside just chilling in their web…I think I’ve managed to overcome my primal instincts regarding creepy crawlies and snakes and so on, in that I’ll try and catch them and pick them up for a closer look

      It probably helps that I live in the UK though, and not Australia or other tropical place…they have some mental things there

      • fiat_lux@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I am Australian. Honestly the dangers are overblown, but there are still a few spiders that make me go a bit wobbly inside.

        Orb-weavers (different genus though) are one of them to a tiny degree, not because they’re dangerous, or even fast. It’s because they have thick webs that they spin every single damn night and you accidentally walk through them. And then they freak out while you’re freaking out… and they can really grip on to you.

        I don’t go walking through gardens at night in some areas anymore, I’m happy to appreciate them from a distance. But I still feel that instinctive “do not want” deep down.

        • quinacridone@lemmy.mlOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yep, there’s nothing quite like that unnerving feeling of walking face first into a spider web

        • Kalash@feddit.ch
          1·
          1 year ago

          Orb-weavers (different genus though)

          You are probably dealing with Hortophora transmarina, the “Australian garden orb weaver spider”, though you probably don’t call it Australian in Australia.

          I always thought they were very considerate spiders because they are nocturnal and, as you said, build a new web every night. So they actually take it down during they day. Most orb-weavers won’t do that for you.