Odd Spiders

Sugarbear

Can anybody tell me what kind of spiders these little fellows might be? I found near a dozen of them living in webs on a bush in the garden, 2 of them are over 3 inches in length! But now one has turned up in the hallway? Are they garden spiders? Or do they just like to set up camp anywhere? Any help would be great, Thanks

Lex Luthor

Sugarbear wrote:

Can anybody tell me what kind of spiders these little fellows might be? I found near a dozen of them living in webs on a bush in the garden, 2 of them are over 3 inches in length! But now one has turned up in the hallway? Are they garden spiders? Or do they just like to set up camp anywhere? Any help would be great, Thanks

2-3 inches...? Body or total with leg span.
They look like commoner garden spiders to me. The one you found inside must have come in on someone's clothes, I'd guess.

Sugarbear

Garden spider huh? That's fine, I've actually never seen any garden spiders that colour before, the flash on the camera makes them brighter they really are, which is very dark yellow with black stripes on their legs. They're around 3 inches or more in length, that's including their legspan yeah. Thanks for your help.

pauln

Broke out the book of Irish wildlife and from you picture it looks like two types;

1.) As mentioned the common Garden Spider Araneus diadematus , problem is the book puts them at a body length of up to 12mm so either your guys on steroids or thats not it.

2.) The common cross spider Araneus quadratus . Body lenghth up to 20mm, sounds more like your guy. They look very similar to the garden spider but bigger.

All harmless. I had one of these in the house a while back, Zebra spider. Really weird guy because they can jump pretty far compared to their size, I didn't know even we had spiders that could do that!

Lex Luthor

Ever seen the movie Aracnaphobia?

They had cross breeds in that that could jump pretty far.

Sugarbear

pauln wrote:

1.) As mentioned the common Garden Spider Araneus diadematus , problem is the book puts them at a body length of up to 12mm so either your guys on steroids or thats not it.

These look like the type that are in the garden at the moment, they're well over 3 inches, I think a few of them might be pregnant. They living in a very curious way though, they'll only live in one of the bushes in the garden, even though it's one of the smaller bushes. Magnificent colours and markings on them!