Female Golden Silk Spider / Nephila clavipes

nice one:)

Thanks Kasy. She is a large spider. About 5"..including her legs.

What an incredible picture Klahanie. She's beautiful! Should a spider be described as beautiful....lol!

o wow! really big. I'd call her 'Tortoise Spider' ;-) Take out the legs and she reminds me of tortoise a bit.
Scottish - why not. Just look at the pattern - isn't it just beautiful?

That was a bit tongue in cheek Kasy - meaning that many (not me) would never describe a spider as beautiful. They'd run a mile before getting a chance to admire it.

I know what you mean Scottish - I guess you like me wouldn't run screaming seeing a mouse, lol.

5 inches, wow! I'm glad I don't have them in my garden, the long legs give me the creeps, but I agree she has lovely markings.

She is pretty harmless and her venom is not deadly. . A bite from this spider will not result in much more than a welt that will pass within 24 hours. Of course if someone has an allergic reaction to it then that would be a different story.

incredible spider...i like this fact about Golden Silk Spider the ‘golden’ refers to the colour of the silk, the web of a mature female has yellow threads which look like rich gold in the sunshine. it must be quite beautiful to see :-)

She is a beauty Jane, and the silk is very strong. We had 2 of them on the property. (In 2 different places) I was sad to see that one of them abandoned her net. It was damaged and she was constantly repairing it. Finally she gave up and moved to give herself a fresh start.

aww! all the best to her ツ

When my grandsons were little, there was a big fat green garden spider in the greenhouse. We called her Mabel & every time the g'children came round to us, we would go up the garden to see what Mabel was doing! Sometimes she was in her web but other times we had to coax her out by dropping a bit of grass on the web!!
I hoped that it would get them used to spiders so that they weren't scared of them. I don't know how they feel now that they are teenagers!
I don't mind spiders at all as long as they are not the venomous types!!! I used to look after a tarantula in a place where I worked years ago. It was a butterfly & small wild creatures exhibition, with lizards, stick insects, hissing cockroaches & suchlike.
I have to say though that I don't like our own ordinary cockroaches - they are the only things that really make me cringe!!!

I enjoyed reading your story Shirley.

My that's a real beauty. I don't think we have those in Britain?

We do not have them on Vancouver Island either, Stera.
This was taken when we stayed in Mexico last winter. We will be going down again pretty soon.