08 Dec,2023
Credit: Google Images
Golden Orb Weaving Spiders are large spiders with silvery-grey to plum coloured bodies and brown-black, often yellow banded legs. The males are tiny and red-brown to brown in colour.
Credit: Google Images
Golden Orb Weaving Spiders are found in dry open forest and woodlands, coastal sand dune shrubland and mangrove habitats.
Credit: Google Images
Golden Orb Weaving Spiders are found in dry open forest and woodlands, coastal sand dune shrubland and mangrove habitats, with Nephila edulis and N. plumipes being the two species found in the Sydney region.
Credit: Google Images
Golden orb weaving spiders prey items include flies, beetles, locusts, wood moths and cicadas. Sometimes their strong webs manage to trap small birds or bats, and the spider will wrap them and feed upon them.
Credit: Google Images
The Golden Orb Weaving Spiders build large, semi-permanent orb webs. The strong silk has a golden sheen. These spiders remain in their webs day and night and gain some protection from bird attack by the presence of a 'barrier network' of threads on one or both sides of the orb web.
Credit: Google Images
In the Golden Orb Weaving Spider group, it is common for a number of tiny (6 mm) males to live around the edges of a female's web, waiting for a mating opportunity.
Credit: Google Images
Predators of orb weavers include several bird species and wasps of the family Sphecidae. The wasps land on the web, lure the spider to the perimeter by imitating a struggling insect's vibrations, and then carry the spider away to be paralysed and stored as live food for their young.
Credit: Google Images
Orb weavers are reluctant to bite. Symptoms are usually negligible or mild local pain, numbness and swelling. Occasionally nausea and dizziness can occur after a bite.
Credit: Google Images