My spider! My amazing spider!
Some of you may have heard me recount seeing the most amazing spider I've ever seen in my life, last January in Australia. It was on a massive web four to five feet wide (around 1.5 metres) and it was yellow and black, an orb weaver, with peculiar markings that clearly showed a skull on the underside.
I took a picture of my beautiful spider and out of all the photos that we took in Australia, that's the one I most desperately wanted, because I really wanted to identify the spider when we got home. As I discovered when we got the pictures developed, unfortunately, the camera chose to focus on the jungle beyond and the spider was simply a white really-out-of-focus splotch in the foreground.
Today, by accident, I have come one step closer to identifying my spider. Now, I'm aware that the chances of a positive 100% identification are low because 1) I'm operating on memory and 2) there are over 35,000 different types of spiders. But! Today I came across a picture of Nephila maculata and I think I'm on the right track - the abdomen isn't a match and the markings are a little different, but there's enough similarity that I believe it's a relative of my spider. My spider must be in the Nephila genus. I'm very excited!
I took a picture of my beautiful spider and out of all the photos that we took in Australia, that's the one I most desperately wanted, because I really wanted to identify the spider when we got home. As I discovered when we got the pictures developed, unfortunately, the camera chose to focus on the jungle beyond and the spider was simply a white really-out-of-focus splotch in the foreground.
Today, by accident, I have come one step closer to identifying my spider. Now, I'm aware that the chances of a positive 100% identification are low because 1) I'm operating on memory and 2) there are over 35,000 different types of spiders. But! Today I came across a picture of Nephila maculata and I think I'm on the right track - the abdomen isn't a match and the markings are a little different, but there's enough similarity that I believe it's a relative of my spider. My spider must be in the Nephila genus. I'm very excited!
