Arachnophiles Only Read On

Here now is the late (very late indeed) late-summer roundup of Spiders In The Backyard, 2009 Edition. We will be starting with egg cases, but later there will be big hairy spiders, so you are aware. This summer we had a number of Cribellate Orb Weavers (Uloborus) on this one low evergreen shrub. They build a horizontal orb web, and sit around all stretched out with their legs before and behind them in a line. Odd. Here's a shot of what the egg cases look like. Naturally, I missed the emergence. Very hard to catch these things.

Here's the Uloborus stretched out, as is its wont, in the center of the web.

Here she is, stretched out (again) to the southwest with one egg case behind her:

So that was something new and different. There were plenty of familiar octopeds, too.

Here, it was a cool day, and this guy was sleeping under a buddleia leaf just off his web.

Look at the design on this spider's abdomen. It reminds me of a woven tapestry or rug:

Click to enlarge and check out the child-like flower image on this spider's abdomen, a brown flower with two leaves on a cream background:

( I don't know what's for lunch, but it looks like there's plenty of it... )

And last but not you-know-what, here's a belly-view of a late-summer badass, the kind that build giant webs across frequently-traveled paths...