#Arachtober 29: didn't have time for a proper spider outing, so hopped over the garden wall to see what I could find in the yard—and almost walked right through this cross orbweaver's web strung between the dead coneflowers and columbines! As you can hopefully see in the close-up, her jaws are full of a big lump of mushed-up bugs.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #spiders #Araneae #Araneidae

#Arachtober 27: late October, we're getting frost warnings, but the orbweavers just keep on trucking. Taken just a few hours ago on a grocery run; the supermarket's large windows attract a lot of midges and are great scaffolds for the ubiquitous _Larinioides_ orbweavers.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #spiders #Araneae #Araneidae

#Arachtober 18: an Eastern parson spider (_Herpyllus ecclesiasticus_), a stealthy and fast-moving active hunter, feeding on a male _Zygiella_ missing-sector orbweaver. (This was right behind a female's web.) You can see the distinctive "knees" of the male's pedipalps in focus in the second picture.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #spiders #SpiderBehaviour #Araneae #Gnaphosidae #Araneidae

#Arachtober 15: it's _Zygiella_ courtship season! The males hang around the edges of the females' webs, plucking and strumming rhythmically to communicate. Here's a male with his long "elbowed" pedipalps; a female; and a cobweb spider preying on an unlucky male suitor who got too close.

#ArthroBeauty #spiders #Araneae #Araneidae #Theridiidae

#Arachtober 9: a very cool orbweaver, _Gea heptagon_! Named because of its seven-pointed abdomen. So far I have only found them low among the grass in a particular marshy meadow. The juveniles have similar circular web decorations as young _Argiope_.

#ArthroBeauty #spiders #Araneae #Araneidae