Nephila edulisCommon Name: Australian Golden Orb-Weaving Spider
Meaning of name: Nephila means fond of spinning. Edulis is Latin for edible.
Distribution: Found throughout Australia.
Description: Females’ body length up to 40 millimetres long, males to 7 millimetres. The web has a golden appearance in sunlight.
Notes: These spiders have been seen from September, through summer, to the following April.
Only the female spider builds a web. Unlike a lot of spiders, the web is not dismantled but repaired when damaged. The males can often be found on the outer edges of the web. They are small and can be mistaken for baby spiders.
Nephila webs normally contain a string of debris masses which are the remains of insects the spider has eaten. The tendency to produce such a string is rare among orb weaver species so this is a useful identification feature.
The web is very strong and has been known to trap small birds.
Kleptoparasites like Argyrodes antipodianus, Dewdrop Spider, can also occupy the web.
References: Atlas of Living Australia https://bie.ala.org.au/species/https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/a4afa011-fe07-48bb-bbea-184758594291#overview
Spider Watch, a Guide to Australian Spiders. Bert Brunet. 2000
The Find-a-spider Guide for the Spiders of Southern Queensland, http://www.findaspider.org.au/find/spiders/116.htm.
http://www.arachne.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=1654
A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia. Robert Whyte and Greg Anderson. 2017
Nephila species are some of the largest web building spiders in Australia.
The male, near the clump of debris in the web, is tiny when compared with the size of the female.
This is an egg sac positioned at the edge of the web.
There is an intricate pattern on the underside of this Nephila species. Photograph courtesy of Clive Nealon.
This spider has caught a grasshopper. Photograph courtesy of Bryony Fremlin.
