To calm my nerves my daughter, who is staying in Australia, writes that she has been clearing the cobwebs from the outside of the house!

Today she sent me a picture of the St Andrew’s Cross Spider (one of her neighbours) :

If its back were showing you would see dramatic (wasp like) bands of yellow and black. She shows the characteristic saltire, that X of zig zag, actually spiral, threads called web decorations or stabilimenta. This last word says it all — these have to be stabilizers or shock absorbers to strengthen the web. These are formidable engineers.

Webs like this are made by members of the Argiope family all over the world. Here’s one we saw in the southern USA:

Just a little spider, sitting in the middle of a huge cross made of spiral threads, wrapping something up before Christmas. It was the cross that fascinated. In the US they call them Zipper Spiders (A. aurantia) or Writing Spiders — some of the more untidy spinners produce stabilimenta that look as if you should be able to read them!

You can find their cousins all over the world with assorted variations in markings and web stabilimenta. There’s at least one that can be seen in Britain (Argiope bruennichi) and isn’t it just typical that we have to travel half way round the world to find that out!

We’ll be looking for this one at Minsmere next summer!