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Orb Weaver Eats Katydid

Unidentified Orb Weaver

Orb Weaver Eating A Katydid

Neoscona crucifera 

or

Araneus cavaticus

So here’s the thing – this was gross. Really gross. And really awesome. And right in our front yard. I still haven’t quite figured out what sort of spider she is beyond an orb weaver. I’m leaning toward the first identification.

Orb weavers are nocturnal. We first spotted this lady sometime in the late summer – maybe July-ish. She was first by our porch, making an impressive web from our hanging basked anchored to the ground every single night around dusk. Every single morning within an hour of sunrise – she’d have the web completely taken down. She’d do the same thing over and over again, every night. Then we lost her. She stopped building her web nightly. A few weeks later we saw her, at least I think it was her, slightly more plump and building her nightly web from our pear tree just about 20 feet from her previous nesting spot. One morning I was making coffee and looked out front to see some sort commotion seemingly floating in air, but massive enough from me to see (maybe 40 feet away).

I ran out and caught her, early morning, eating the guts out of a large katydid! It was a gruesome but neat too. Husband was a bit grossed out but didn’t protest too much when I started snapping photos. And that’s that!

I hadn’t seen this spider before, but a bug man out here who I bothered said that they see them all over the place late summer and that most people call them “Garden Spiders”. She was non-aggressive and didn’t mind me checking her out regularly but generally took to hiding near one of the anchors of her massive webs until she caught something.

Yes these photos are less lovely and more gross, but she was so fascinating I had put her up here! Yip!