bordered orbweaver

(Larinioides patagiatus)

Conservation Status
bordered orbweaver
Photo by Joel Dunn
  IUCN Red List

not listed

     
  NatureServe

NNR - Unranked

     
  Minnesota

not listed

     
           
           
 
Description
 
 

Bordered orbweaver is a small to medium-sized furrow spider. It occurs in Europe, Asia, and North America, and is common in northern United States. It is one of three orbweavers grouped together as house spiders. They are so called because they are more often found around houses, barns, fences, and bridges than other orb weavers. However, they often builds their webs in low bushes far from buildings, especially in bushes near water.

The female is 316 to 716 (5.5 to 11 mm) in length. The male is much smaller, ¼ (5.8 to 6.5 mm) long.

The front part of the body (cephalothorax) of the female is moderately arched. There are no horny outgrowths. The hardened plate (carapace) covering the cephalothorax is reddish-brown. It has thin, white, lateral margins but is otherwise uniformly colored and unmarked. There are eight eyes arranged in two parallel rows of four eyes each. On each side the lateral eyes are widely separated from the middle (median) eyes and are almost touching each other. All of the eyes are small.

The abdomen is much larger than the carapace, oval in outline, longer than wide, and flattened on the rear part. It is grayish-brown or brownish-gray with dark markings, including a leaf-shaped mark (folium) on the upper side. The folium has scalloped sides, a pale patch in the middle, and a thin white border. The border is mostly unbroken by spots and transverse marks. This is the feature that gives the spider its common name.

The male is more gray.

The underside (venter) is dark brown. There are two conspicuous, yellow, curved lines that somewhat resemble parentheses.

The legs are short and spiny. The front two pairs project forward, the hind two pairs project backward. They have many conspicuous, highly contrasting, dark bands, including a dark middle band on the fifth segment (metatarsus) of each hind leg.

 
     
 

Size

 
 

Female Body Length: 316 to 716 (5.5 to 11 mm)

Male Body Length: ¼ (5.8 to 6.5 mm)

 
     
 

Web

 
 

The female spins a large circular web that hangs vertically. This web is called an “orb”, which gives this family of spiders its common name. The web is built on low bushes, often near water; on barns, fences, and bridges; and on the eaves and porches of houses. The orb is a closed hub. It usually has 20 to 24 radii, about 16 sticky (viscid) threads above the center, and about 23 viscid threads below. A bell-shaped retreat is made by spinning leaves together at the end of one of the radial threads. When no leaves are available the retreat is made entirely of silk. The web is built at night and the female spends the day in the retreat.

 
     
 

Similar Species

 
     
     
 
Habitat
 
 

Houses, fences, barns, bridges, and bushes, especially bushes near water.

 
     
 
Biology
 
 

Season

 
 

Year round

 
     
 

Behavior

 
 

 

 
     
 

Life Cycle

 
 

Eggs are wrapped in yellow silk and hidden between leaves a distance from the web.

Adults overwinter.

 
     
 

Food

 
 

 

 
     
 
Distribution
 
 

Distribution Map

 

Sources

24, 29, 30, 82.

 
  10/7/2022      
         
 

Occurrence

 
 

Common

 
         
 
Taxonomy
 
  Class Arachnida (arachnids)  
 

Order

Araneae (spiders)  
 

Suborder

Araneomorphae (typical spiders)  
  Infraorder Entelegynae (entelegyne spiders)  
  Superfamily Araneoidea (araneoid spiders)  
 

Family

Araneidae (orbweavers)  
  Subfamily Araneinae (typical orbweavers)  
 

Genus

Larinioides (furrow spiders)  
       
 

Subordinate Taxa

 
 

bordered orbweaver (Larinioides patagiatus islandicola)

bordered orbweaver (Larinioides patagiatus patagiatus)

 
       
 

This species was formerly classified as Nuctenea patagiata. The genus Nuctenea was split into two genera and now contains only a few Eurasian species.

 
       
 

Synonyms

 
 

Aranea ocellata

Araneus patagiatus

Epeira dumetorum

Epeira patagiata

Nuctenea patagiata

 
       
 

Common Names

 
 

bordered orbweaver

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary

Carapace

The hard, upper (dorsal), shell-like covering (exoskeleton) of the body or at least the thorax of many arthropods and of turtles and tortoises. On crustaceans, it covers the cephalothorax. On spiders, the top of the cephalothorax made from a series of fused sclerites.

 

Cephalothorax

The front part of the body of various arthropods, composed of the head region and the thoracic area fused together. Eyes, legs, and antennae are attached to this part.

 

Folium

On some spiders, the leaf-shaped marking on the upper side of the abdomen,

 

 

 
 
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Joel Dunn

 
    bordered orbweaver   bordered orbweaver  
           
    bordered orbweaver      
 

Mike Poeppe

 
 

Here is a spider that I found west of Houston last night.

 
    bordered orbweaver   bordered orbweaver  
           
    bordered orbweaver   bordered orbweaver  
           
 
MinnesotaSeasons.com Photos
 
 

 

 
           
           

 

Camera

     
 
Slideshows
 
Furrow Orbweaver (Larinioides patagiatus)
Andree Reno Sanborn
  Furrow Orbweaver (Larinioides patagiatus)  

 

slideshow

       
 
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Other Videos
 
  Larinioides patagiatus (Wheelhouse Spider) Feeding
gen0mic
 
   
 
About

Aug 13, 2011

Wheelhouse Spider feeding on a 3 week old cricket.

Video taken with Canon Rebel T3i.

 
  Orb Weaver Spider consuming Its' own web to get at the insects tangled within It.
SuFFice To Say
 
   
 
About

Sep 23, 2021

This is how this species of Orb Weaver Spider likes to eat, web and all. - Orb Weaver species - Larinioides patagiatus

 
  Spiders in space: Without gravity, light becomes key to orientation
Today's Sciencology
 
   
 
About

Jan 16, 2021

Spiders in space: Without gravity, light becomes key to orientation - Information for all latest updates Science and Technology https://tinyurl.com/TodaySciencology

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#Science #Scientist #Technology

Humans have taken spiders into space more than once to study the importance of gravity to their web-building. What originally began as a somewhat unsuccessful PR experiment for high school students has yielded the surprising insight that light plays a larger role in arachnid orientation than previously thought. The spider experiment by the US space agency NASA is a lesson in the frustrating failures and happy accidents that sometimes lead to unexpected research findings. The question was relatively simple: on Earth, spiders build asymmetrical webs with the center displaced towards the upper edge. When resting, spiders sit with their head downwards because they can move towards freshly caught prey faster in the direction of gravity.

But what do arachnids do in zero gravity? In 2008, NASA wanted to inspire middle schools in the US with this experiment. But even though the question was simple, the planning and execution of the experiment in space was extremely challenging. This led to a number of mishaps.

Two specimens from different spider species flew to the International Space Station (ISS) as "arachnauts," one (Metepeira labyrinthea) as the lead and the other (Larinioides patagiatus) as a reserve in case the first didn't survive. The reserve spider escaped The reserve spider managed to break out of its storage chamber and into the main chamber. The chamber couldn't be opened for safety reasons, so the extra spider could not be recaptured. The two spiders spun somewhat muddled webs, getting in each other's way. And if that were not enough, the flies included as food reproduced more quickly than expected. Over time, their larvae crawled out of the breeding container on the floor of the case into the experimental chamber, and after two weeks covered large parts of the front window. After a month, the spiders could no longer be seen behind all the fly larvae.

This failure long nagged at Paula Cushing of the Denver Museum of Nature Science, who participated in the planning of the spider experiment. When the opportunity for a similar experiment on board the ISS cropped up again in 2011, the researcher got Dr. Samuel Zschokke of the University of Basel involved to prepare and analyze the new attempt. This time, the experiment started with four spiders of the same species (Trichonephila clavipes): two flew to the ISS in separate habitats, two stayed on Earth in separate habitats and were kept and observed under identical conditions as their fellows traveling in space -- except that they were exposed to terrestrial gravity. The females were males The plan was originally to use four females. But another mishap occurred: the spiders had to be chosen for the experiment as juveniles and it is extremely difficult to determine the sex of juvenile animals. In the course of the experiment, two of the spiders turned out to be males, which differ markedly in body structure and size from females of this species when fully grown. But finally there was a stroke of luck -- one of the males was on board the space station, the other on Earth.

The arachnids spun their webs, dismantled them, and spun new ones. Three cameras in each case took pictures every five minutes. Zschokke, Cushing and Stefanie Countryman of the University of Colorado's BioServe Space Technologies that oversaw the design and launch of the space flight certified habitats containing the spiders and fruit fly larvae and camera system to the International Space Station analyzed the symmetry of 100 spider webs and the orientation of the spider in the web using about 14,500 images. It turned out that the webs built in zero gravity were indeed more symmetrical than those spun on Earth. Their center was closer to the middle and the spiders did not always keep their heads downwards. However, the researchers noticed that it made a difference whether the spiders built their webs in lamplight or in the dark. Webs built on the ISS in lamplight were similarly asymmetrical as the terrestrial webs. Light as a back-up system "We wouldn't have gue...

 

 

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  Joel Dunn
9/20/2022

Location: (Almost) Ironically, in Weaver, MN

bordered orbweaver  
  Mike Poeppe
8/23/2021

Location: west of Houston, MN

Here is a spider that I found west of Houston last night.

bordered orbweaver  
           
 
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Created: 9/29/2021

Last Updated:

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