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We have a Golden Orb Weaver in the back yard, and it makes a magnificent web. Last
night's was truly a work of art.

I went out to look at the situation tonight, and the web was looking a bit tatty, probably
because a couple of interlopers were in attendance. Anyway, it was go time. The weaver
was sitting in the middle of the web jerking at the strands, and the invaders were making
cautious forays from the support strands to the main web area. The weaver was not happy,
and marched down to have a crack at one of them......

D200, Nikon 105, SB800, 1/60 f11 manual, flash manual, 1/4 to 1/8.

Events were taking place about 3 metres from the ground. I was using a step ladder (always
tricky after a few wines with dinner), Indie (the cat) was fascinated with the whole proceedings.

You can see a spike sticking out of the weaver in the third shot - do any of our arachnologists
know what it is? I thought it may be a venom delivery thingy.

[EDIT - based on muzza's post below, and the link, this may in fact be spider porn. This had
not occurred to me, the visitors look completely different, but of course male and female spiders
of the same type can look nothing like each other. The "spike" question becomes even more
perplexing, although the spider with the red legs is (apparently) the female. But you
never know these days, I have seen some things on the internet.......)









C&C welcome

I am thinking that maybe the smaller one is a male! Not 100% sure though.

Great photos by the way.

Just googled it and found this http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/or ... piders.htm

Greg, as pointed out, the smaller spider is the male and he's trying to impregnate the female without ending up as her dinner. So, when you said they were fighting, you were half right.

I'm not sure what the spike is coming out the female, but it certainly isn't related to venom delivery. Spiders deliver venom from their two fangs on either side of the mouth parts.

When mating, the male delivers to sperm into the females vagina on the underside of her abdomen using pedipalps which sit outside the fangs. The pedipalps are sort of like a spidery turkey baster which he uses to suck up the semen from a little web on which he ejaculates.

Great shots, although the flash lighting is a little harsh. The behaviour the shots are showing more than makes up for the harsh lighting.