Garden Orb-weaver
S2, Male, Palp
Garden Orb-weaver
S1, Female, Eye arrangement
| Garden Orb-weaver S2, Male, Palp | | Garden Orb-weaver S1, Female, Eye arrangement | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Spiders, Scorpions, Mites & Ticks (Arachnida) | |||
| Order: | Spiders (Araneae) | ||||
| Family: | Orb-weaver Spider (Araneidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Garden Orb-weaver (Eriophora biapicata) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S6, Male, Palp🔎 | ||||
| Synonym: | Hortophora biapicata | ||||
| Other name: | Common Garden Orb Weaver | ||||
Thank you Suzanne and Jim & Tony and Jenny Dominelli for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Adelaide Hills and elsewhere The black female (S1) was ~15mm, the black male (S2) ~13mm and the pale male (S6) ~11mm long (body & head) The male specimen shown here (black one) was in poor shape, malnourished and had lost appendages; missing front leg and one palp. Also it's not possible to see the fangs, so may have also lost them causing the malnutrition. Notice the tibial spur on the 2nd leg of the male. This spur is more forward, compared with the Spurred Orb Weaver (Novakiella trituberculosa); only on the male as they are used when mating to stop the female from invenemating him. This spur is more noticable on this specimen as the front leg isn't blocking the view. Clearly you can see how highly variable these are. Both males & females have very spiny legs, which isn't normally very obvious, but with black hairs and golden spines they stand out quite clearly. These are now Hortophora biapicata, but it takes a while for Atlas to catch up with new binomial names. | |||||
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