My wife found this beautiful Black and Yellow Garden Spider while picking blackberries and brought her home to show me - this was a catch and release operation, after we admired her for a while in a jar we released her in my outdoor garden.
The Golden Orb Weaver is much more common round these parts and often forms dense population clusters with multiple females spinning huge webs next to each other. The Black and Yellow Garden Spider on the other hand is more of a solitary beauty and I had never seen one before.
Unlike most insects, spiders only have two main body parts - the abdomen (rear section with the spinnerets - the legs do not attach to this section) and a fused head/thorax called a cephalothorax (the "upper body" and head, the legs attach to this section). I cannot get over the striking black and yellow design on her abdomen. This is simply stunning design work, nature - great job! Her silvery cephalothorax is covered in a fine reflective hair which my cell phone camera had a hard time focusing on. These features are reflected in her scientific name - the genus name argiope means "silver faced" in reference to the silvery cephalothorax and aurantia means "gilded" in reference to the yellow gold markings on the abdomen.
Like most other orb web weavers the female Black and Yellow Garden Spider is much larger than the male, but despite her impressive size these are gentle giants and nothing for humans to worry about. I am excited to have a new queen taking up residence in my plants!
All hail the queen!
In the jar with my hand for size reference
Classic defensive posture with the first two legs raised up - this is right after I prodded her out of the jar with a pen - she calmed down shortly
She really has a magnificent butt... erm... abdomen
Argipe aurantia (Black and Yellow Garden Spider) on Blue Widow (Blueberry x White Widow - indica dominant hybrid)