It was in the month of May, I saw this little insect outside my window. It is a spider. I was fascinated to see the spider spinning its web, right in front of my eyes. The web was also clearly visible.
Spider – Argiope pulchella
The common name for this type of Spider is Cross Spider.
Hope you would have understood, why the name came, by seeing the image above. Yes!! Since it keeps its legs like a cross in the web (like an X), So the name cross spider.
The head (upper part) of the spider is covered with silver hairs. Hence the scientific name, Argiope pulchella.
Argiope comes from the Latin word,argentum meaning silver.
The Swedish Arachnologist, Tord Tamerlan Teodor Thorell had described these species around the year 1881.
He was born in Gothenburg on 3 May 1830. During his lifetime, he had researched more than 1000 species of spiders. His works are On European Spiders (1869) and Synonym of European Spiders (1870-73). He passed away in Helsingborg on 22 December 1901.
Spider Web at Night – Argiope pulchella
The species is commonly called Orb – Weaver Spiders or Orb web spiders. Orb is an old English word for circle.These spiders have the ability to build a circular wheel shaped web.
They are seen all over India, China and Indonesia.
The spider never gets tired to built its web again & again, even after heavy rain and strong wind, it was still there spinning the web!!
The web in the concentric circular shape – Argiope pulchella
They make a thick zig-zag pattern around the center of the web on four corners like an X. This is called stabilimentum or web decoration. The spider then rests in the center, aligning its pair of legs to each corner of the pattern.
This is a specialty of the Argiope species. The real reason behind this decoration is still unknown. It might be to attract the prey or to scare away some predators.
Argiope pulchella – Zig-zag pattern and Egg sac
The egg sac took around 15 days for the baby spiders to hatch. These are called spiderlings.
After laying the eggs, the abdomen of the spider becomes thin. But in about 10 days, it becomes bulk again, ready to built another sac. It sounds weird, but that’s the fact.
This spider totally built 3 egg sacs. Each sac, usually contains thousands of eggs.
Spiderlings – Argiope pulchella
The spider always builds the egg sac at night. Even the spiderlings hatched at night. I saw this early morning.
When an insect gets stuck in the web, the spider rapidly attacks it, rolls the prey into a ball by covering it, with a new spin of web. Later the spider would eat it. These are harmless to humans.
These spiders have pentagonal (Five sides) abdomen (opisthosoma). All the pictures above shows the ventral view (back side of the spider). Unfortunately, I don’t have any dorsal side(front side) view.
Along with this study, it teaches us a lesson.
NEVER GIVE UP!! AND…
IF YOU ARE IN A WEB;
BE A SPIDER!! NOT THE PREY!!