Black and yellow Spider

[Pat]

It is a golden orb spider. It is essentially harmless to folks (unless terrified of spiders) they just eat a lot of bugs. If you tap them in the middle of their back they put on a display. They move their legs up and down to "pump" the web back and forth like a trampoline. I'm told that this is to make themselves look macho and scare off whatever it was that was touching them. I have donle it a number of times and it always works, sometimes real well. Always elicits a response from the folks who are afraid of spiders.

Pat

[kokopelli]

the bannana spiders they have in japan are huge! the things would grow to around 2 inches not including the legs and would actually catch small birds and rodents! man it was hell mountian biking in the spring because they would make their webs across the trails.... i dont know if they could hurt us but when you have a 2 inch spider hanging off your helmet you generally dont wait to find out. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

[needakioti]

Down here in South Carolina we call them "writing spiders", becouse of the zig-zags in the web. I have heard them called this all my life.