Taking pictures of a house we are listing today, noticed this little gem outside. He actually is small, I've seen this variety twice his size around here.

For size reference, those are two-inch blinds in the window behind him.

Cheers,
Russ

Nice; looks like the ones we used to find out in the weeds when I was a kid.

A couple years back I tried to talk the wife into moving down to Austin; she hates Michigan winters. But when she found out about rattlesnakes and Black Widows, that ended that real fast. I tried to point out that Detroit has it's own predators, but you know............

thats cool....i played around with my digi-cam when it was new...i got a couple of dillies......

Just about walked right into one of those out behind the house the other day. Web was up between to trees about head high. Those guys like to sit dead center in the web, so there would have been a fight and I don't know for sure who would have won :boxing:

Also hate those fat body suckers that build heavy webs from a tree or house eve to the ground after dark. Always walking into one of those and you never know where that damn spider went :grumpy:

-Dave

Ah yes, the Writing Spider. The big ones are always the females, if she hasn't mated with & then disposed of the male, he's usually over in one corner of the web.If you stick a leaf of a stick into the web, she'll start vibrating/ bouncing it back & forth, trying to get you to eff off. Throw a bug in the web, if she's hungry, the poor bug is wrapped & ready for supper B4 he knows what hit him. They seem to go in cvcles, haven't seen as many in the last couple years as I did back 5-10 years ago . Think hornets are the same way-haven't seen a hornet's nest in quite awhile either. Neat picture, anyhow. -Sandy G.

Argiope aurantia, also known as the Golden Garden Spider.

We here in Missouri have about one of every kind of arachnid you can think of.