Charolette's Web

We have a new house guest. We found this lovely lady on the inside of a double pane window in our kitchen. There is a small slit in the outer window that allows insects to crawl in, but they can't enter the house. Great insect viewer!

She has weaved a very beautiful web that is not visible in the picture. We have identified her as an Golden Orb Garden Spider. We watched her for weeks as she would snare her victims and eat them. She seemed to have a huge appetite.

One day we noticed she was all curled up and hardly moving. We figured she must be dying. Then we noticed a HUGE egg sac in the corner. (see second picture) Retta commented that she was just like the spider in the movie Charolette's web, "She is just tired from making that big egg sac." I wasn't so sure, she looked pretty close to dead.

The next day she was gone and we assumed she had crawled out the window and died. Then a few days later she was back. She looks as good as new and is back up on her web. (assuming of course it is the same spider) We now wait anxiously for the emergence of all the little spiderlings. I have to empahasize how pleased I am that the the window is tightly sealed to the inside.

I added a picture of another window in the house that contains a purse web spider. It is hard to tell in the picture, the webs are an intricate set of tunnels. The spider sits in the bottom of the tunnel and jumps out and snatches his prey.

We will let you know when the babies arrrive!