Our new visitor

This beautiful girl showed up on our front porch yesterday. She is huge! I was able to get some pictures while my husband kept a distance from her. My mother in law wants to move her but I told her this species is not dangerous and she'll help keep bugs off the porch. Her web takes up an entire corner of our porch and in the background you can see her babies. I think the male might be in the web somewhere. I saw a much smaller spider (in comparison to this female) with dull coloration down in the corner below the babies. He was just sitting there. From the ID site I used, it said males were much duller in color and were much much smaller than the female. So I assume this was Daddy. From the ID site, it said she is a Yellow and Black Garden spider (or Common Garden Spider) and that she is not harmful to people. Everyone else keeps calling her a Banana spider. :confused: Is this a local name for them or are they just mistaken? (Or am I mistaken?)

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...726_181733.jpg

I love looking at spiders and I would keep them as pets if I could, but hubby is terrified of spiders. He's okay if they are outside (he stood within 5ft of this girl. I was proud of him) but I am not allowed to have any inside the house. Maybe once I have my own facility I can start keeping spiders. :D

A blurry pic of her many babies. What do they eat at this size? They are so tiny!!!
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...726_181717.jpg

So beautiful! Such an impressive looking spider. Looks like you've got a little porch-buddy:P.

VERY pretty visitor to get!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know much about true spiders so as for what it exactly is I have no clue personally :confused:

Both names are correct. We call them Banana Spiders in East TX too. :)
They make me think of the BP morph of the same name, haha

Our porch is spider haven. We always have spider making webs on our porch but for some reason this week, we've had tons show up. There's her, and we also had one make a huge web by the stairs and we had two webs on the side. Then there are all the spiders making webs up near the porch light. Unfortunately the house guest decided to clean off all of the webs off the porch. I managed to get her to leave this girl alone. I couldn't bare to see her beautiful web and babies destroyed. She's so huge you can easily see her from where we park our cars. I just hope no one bothers her. She's nice to look at and she's not bothering anyone. :D

We have one of those that hangs out near our porch. They are beautiful.

Ugh! I was talking with my mother in law and she really wants to move the spider and her babies to a nearby patch of trees. I told her she shouldn't move her since she already has her web up and has all those babies nearby. She tried to use the excuse "I fear she isn't in a good location for food." I reminded her that the spider wouldn't have made the web there if it wasn't a good location for food. I was able to convince her to leave her alone but she says as soon as the babies leave, she's moving momma spider to the trees. I think she just doesn't want a spider that big living right where she has to walk by everyday.

Not sure if anyone knows this, but when do the baby spiders usually leave the home web? I didn't notice the web until yesterday but I'm not sure how long she's been there. She could have had a smaller web (because that bigger one is definitely noticeable and wasn't there before yesterday) and laid her egg sac much earlier. This is making me want to learn more about the whole process of spider reproduction. I know a little from watching youtube videos on tarantulas.

Why oh why can't I keep spiders as pets!!!!!???? They fascinate me. (Just don't want them crawling on me is all. :P )

Another pic.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...726_181742.jpg

As they get bigger they will eventually move on on their own. Nice looking spider. We don't get those here. Just black widows an orb weever here and there and the occasional wolf spider.

That's an awesome looking banana spider! We had one chilling by our pool last summer, and my mom came up out of the water right in front of it. She nearly died, I swear :rofl:

As Nektu said, the babies will eventually leave on their own, usually it'll be after they've molted a couple times.

That's pretty cool. We call them banana spiders in IL too. They use to be very common around here south if Chicago but I haven't seen one in years.

The babies will be less and less every day. They won't stick around long. They are not aggressive at all and just think of all the flies and other bugs they will eat. Tell your mom to give it a week or 2 and they should all be gone.

I'm so very jealous!

I had one of these as a "pet" when I was young. She built a giant web outside my bedroom window in the flowerbed, and I used to catch baby crickets every evening and feed them to her. It was so cool to watch her wrap them up!

When my mom called an exterminator for our silverfish problem, I cried because I just knew he'd kill her. He came while I was at school, and I couldn't bear to go home and see her gone. But when I finally couldn't put it off any longer, I came walking slowly up the driveway, and as I lifted my eyes to where her empty web would be, she was there!

Apparently my mother showed her to the exterminator and told him to make sure he didn't hurt her, so he was careful to spray around her, but not too close.

The next morning she was gone and so was her web, and I fell apart all over again. Two days later, she had a new web in a different place. I caught crickets for her for 2 hours. She stayed with me for another month, then my idiot brother hit her web when he mowed the lawn and she left for good.

I used to see them a lot, but I haven't seen one for several years now. I miss them dearly. Maybe you could catch a few of the little ones and slip them into a film canister and mail them to me ? I'd love to have some again.

Gale

I would if I knew how to go about catching them in a film container and then again, how to ship spiders. :confused:

LOL


Actually, I've seen people with T's do it. Apparently, you use something small and thin like a piece of paper or a feather or something to coax them to crawl onto said object and then you gently tap them off into chosen container.

Shipping would be tougher though, with this heat I doubt they'd make it. But I can still dream. I miss seeing those beautiful creatures so much.

Maybe next year I'll plan a trip to your neck of the woods and see if I can round up one or two to bring back home. If you should happen to find yourself with any more pictures of her, I'm more than happy to see them.

Gale