Banded garden spider
The banded garden spider builds a big round web between stems and bushes. It hangs in the middle, head down, with its legs held together in pairs so it looks like a cross. The girl spiders are much bigger than the boys.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its round web can be about 60 centimetres across, as wide as a big pizza tray.
Some webs have thick zigzag threads woven in like a decoration. Birds see them and fly around the web instead of breaking it.
The little boy spiders build their own tiny webs right next to the big web of a girl spider.
It is busy in the daytime and sits in the middle of its web all day long.
A scientist named Forsskål first described it in 1775 from a spider found in Egypt.
Most asked questions about Banded garden spider
?What does a banded garden spider eat?
Insects that get stuck in its web, even wasps, which it wraps up in silk.
?Why does its web have zigzag lines?
Scientists are not completely sure. The thick lines may make the web easy for birds to see, so they do not fly through it.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Argiope trifasciata
- Named by
- Forsskål, 1775
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Banded orb weaving spider, Banded argiope
Where the facts come from
- Argiope trifasciata (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Peter Webb. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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