Another ID question for the bug people (or in this case, the arachnid people...)
He was substantially larger than the wolf spiders I'm used to seeing around here, legspan looked to be about two inches across.... Kevin hasn't seen anything like him. There are at least two in the garden. When I first saw him, he was holding his legs rather oddly, with two legs on each side held tightly together, giving him a weird star-fishy look.
ETA: Nursery web spider! Thank you, guys! (And now I know what those odd webbed leaf structures are--they're "nursery webs" where the baby spiders live under Mom's care until their first molt.) There are at least three in the yard, so we'll have a bumper crop of spiderlings at some point.
I am no great lover of spiderkind, in all honesty, and this girl gives me a little bit of the willies, but they eat mosquitoes and gnats, so I'm grateful that they're there...but I'm also pretty glad they're OUT THERE and not IN HERE.
Also saw a good sized black snake this morning--around three feet, we determined, based on the number of fence posts it was stretched alongside--so clearly the yard is working enough as an ecosystem to carry a bunch of big predators!
He was substantially larger than the wolf spiders I'm used to seeing around here, legspan looked to be about two inches across.... Kevin hasn't seen anything like him. There are at least two in the garden. When I first saw him, he was holding his legs rather oddly, with two legs on each side held tightly together, giving him a weird star-fishy look.
ETA: Nursery web spider! Thank you, guys! (And now I know what those odd webbed leaf structures are--they're "nursery webs" where the baby spiders live under Mom's care until their first molt.) There are at least three in the yard, so we'll have a bumper crop of spiderlings at some point.
I am no great lover of spiderkind, in all honesty, and this girl gives me a little bit of the willies, but they eat mosquitoes and gnats, so I'm grateful that they're there...but I'm also pretty glad they're OUT THERE and not IN HERE.
Also saw a good sized black snake this morning--around three feet, we determined, based on the number of fence posts it was stretched alongside--so clearly the yard is working enough as an ecosystem to carry a bunch of big predators!