European garden spider
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 European garden spider in web
|
||||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
| Araneus diadematus Clerck, 1757 |
The European garden spider (Araneus diadematus, cross spider) is a very common and well-known orb-weaver spider in Western Europe. Araneus diadematus also lives in parts of North America, in a range extending from New England and the Southeast to the Northwestern United States and adjacent parts of Canada.
Individual spiders' colouring can range from extremely light yellow to very dark gray, but all European garden spiders have mottled markings across the back with five or more large white dots forming a cross. The white dots result from cells that are filled with guanine, which is a byproduct of protein metabolism.[1]
It is hard to provoke a garden spider to bite - if it does, the bite is slightly unpleasant, though utterly harmless to humans.
[edit] References
- ^ Foelix, R.F. (1992). Biologie der Spinnen. Thieme (German)
[edit] External links
- Araneaus diadematus at Nick's Spiders of Britain and Europe
- European Garden Spider at Hans and Hania's Garden Safari
- European orb weavers at Spiders of NW-Europe
- World Spider Catalog
[edit] Gallery
 European garden spider |
 Picture of a young male European garden spider wrapping up a common flesh fly |
 An underside view of spider while spinning its web. |
 side view of scared, Polish garden spider, in its late summer outfit. |
 Moulted garden spider |
 A garden spider with a wasp |
 Araneus diadematus in the centre of its dew-enshrouded web. |
 As found in Germany |
