Column: Facing off with one of autumn’s unsung beauties

My job in conservation can lead me to some interesting, unique and even beautiful spots. Most of the time, however, it leads me to roadside ditches, where I must fight my way through briars and brambles to get to the bottom, where I go to grab a water sample.

Graceless and clumsy, this is not pretty work. Once in a while, however, I end up face to face with something really cool — like the giant black and yellow garden spider that came within a few inches of my nose just the other day.

One of the largest spiders in Ohio, this autumn beauty would have “jumped right out at me” in a visual sense had I not been tangled in a mess of foliage higher than my head. As it turned out, the only thing that kept me from crashing right into her web was a heavy zigzag line of silk woven right down the center of her classic, radially strung, 2-foot-wide web.

This line, the stabilimentum, had clearly accomplished one aspect of its job: warning larger creatures (birds in particular) that the rest of the nearly invisible web was there. The structure also is thought to attract insects by reflecting ultraviolet light — the old “moth to a flame” trick.

Even beyond the gossamer web, the beauty of this spider is dazzling. Black and yellow garden spiders flip the dimorphic script of beauty on birds, with the female being large, bright and showy and the male presenting as small and dull. This helps the diva attract many males from which she selects a mate, conjugates the courtship and then promptly eats him! Though seemingly tragic, this short-term relationship benefits the species by offering an added dose of nutrition to the female as egg development proceeds.

Momma spider will go on to create an egg sack of silk containing up to a thousand eggs, which she’ll anchor to vegetation. The young hatch inside the sac, and as winter approaches, they will fall into a dormant state to ride out the rough weather and emerge in spring.

Spiderlings exit the egg sac en masse once conditions are favorable, each sending off a strand of silk capable of “ballooning” the hatchling off to its new home. With good luck and favorable winds, the young spiders may travel anywhere from a few yards to a thousand miles! This gives spiders a “leg up” on other wingless species in settling new lands.

The months of September and October are prime spider-sighting season, and it doesn’t take much to find a real treasure just hanging around in the vegetation. Black and yellow garden spiders are wonderful to watch and don’t startle easily unless their web is disturbed. While venomous to their prey, they are not likely to bite humans unless mortally threatened. Even then, the bite is typically likened to a bee sting. As with all wildlife, it’s always best to look and not touch!

If you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.