Argiope aurantia and Egg Case

On the morning of September 13, when we were heading out the door to go to Kansas City to see the last stage of the Tour of Missouri, we noticed that "Mrs. Lady" (our pet name for the Argiope aurantia that has built her web by our front door) had just blown an egg case.

Woo-hoo! As you might recall, we've been tracking our argiope's development since well before she was born. See here for a picture of the egg case she almost certainly hatched out of.

And here is a picture of her (we're pretty sure it's the same one) when she had her web temporarily in our yuccas. (Including a nice view of the, um, posteriormost end of her opisthosoma.)

Anyway, I think it's beautiful to see the cycle of life continue. And argiopes, also known as black and yellow garden spiders, are gloriously big. And they always seem to gravitate toward the tomato plants--they guard them from hopping and flying pests like graceful, tiger-striped protectresses.

For a long time I was quite arachnophobic, but argiopes were one of the first spiders I felt warmly toward; when one or two take up residence in your garden, they stay there all summer and become like strange little friends, miniature pet tigers, pouncing on entrapped grasshoppers, giving them a little sedative to take the "edge" off, then wrapping them up like a burrito to eat later on.

This is the first time, I think, that we have caught an argiope so soon after she's created an egg case.

Her skinniness was almost shocking. And as she hobbled around and around the case, weaving the web structure that will keep it safe through the entire winter, her legs looked wobbly and clumsy. As with all female creatures, giving birth can't be easy on her system, either. She looked exhausted. She looked sore. But she still had to weave the support webbing before she could haul off and rest.




While I was taking pictures of her, she did pause for a few moments on a tomato leaf. I didn't notice it until I looked at the pictures later, but she's actually resting on her pedipalps, using them in addition to her wobbly legs, to support her bod.




Then she got back to work on the scaffolding that surrounds and supports the egg case. No, she wasn't moving very fast at all.





She went around and around.




. . . At this point, a week later, she's back in her lovely orb, catching bugs, and looking fine. Getting her strength back. Getting ready for her next egg case!

I think, like all her kind, she's hoping it will be a good long time yet before the deathly frosts come.