Doing the Spider Sway in Bagdad, Kentucky
This is about the biggest spider I've seen lately.
She was busy building a huge web at my Saturday home inspection in Bagdad, KY. From front legs to back legs, she was about three inches long.Look closely at her lower left leg with it's grip on the spider silk. See the larger photos at the bottom of the page.It did distract the buyers and myself from the inspection for a little while as we watched how carefully she built the web.At one point, I think we got just a little too close as she started frantically swaying the web trying to intimidate us to leave her alone. See the Spider Sway Video below.
It was quite a wild sway and certainly enough to keep us from bothering her anymore. We moved away before she went to the next stage of self defense.Later research showed that she's a Black and Yellow Argiope formally known as:"Argiope aurantia"
Mostly harmless to humans but takes a lot of bugs out of the air for us humans For those who are really interested in spiders you can read more about this spider on the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology's Animal Diversity Web
