Marbled Orb Weaver Male

The male strokes the body of a female with his legs during the courtship.

Marbled orb weaver male.

Females are twice the size of males and generally stay hidden at the web s perimeter in a mess of dead leaves. Many species of wasps prey on marbled. We would venture a guess that this may be a male marbled orbweaver araneus marmoreus though we have not seen a photograph of one. However males mate multiple times and often survive mating so cannibalism may not be as common in this species.

Create a lightbox your lightboxes will appear here when you. Occasionally the abdomens are nearly white in color. Will he love and live. Spiders are naturally adept at handling their silk and frequently appear to be hanging in thin air.

One strand of silk extends all the way to her retreat. The spider species araneus marmoreus commonly known as marbled orb weaver belongs to the genus araneus in the family araneidae. Marbled orb weavers prefer wooded areas near water sources like creeks stream rivers ponds and marshes. Marbled orb weavers may also do this.

We are basing that possible identification on the similarity of the markings on the legs and abdomen of your specimen to the images posted on bugguide of female marbled orbweavers. Based on collected data the geographic range for araneus marmoreus includes 3 countries and 19 states in the united states. Orb weaver males are generally much smaller than the females and commonly lack the showy coloring of their fairer sex. Male marbled orb weavers are polygamous but females mate only once in their lives.

After making the web they hide in a silk retreat. They build their webs on shrubs reeds or tall grasses. Araneus marmoreus spiders have been sighted 70 times by contributing members. Hence the english name of the group.

Sometimes both the male and female die after the mating. The female has a body length excluding legs of up to 14 mm while the male is rather smaller at 9 mm. Adult female marbled orbweavers are 9 to 20 millimeters in length with very large abdomens that are mostly orange with brown to purple markings and spots of pale yellow. Orb weaver spiders are members of the spider family araneidae they are the most common group of builders of spiral wheel shaped webs often found in gardens fields and forest.

No need to register buy now. If you look closely you can see the spider s claws gripping one of the web support strands at lower left.