Home and Garden: What is that spider?

By Jamie Strickland

This terrifying looking creature goes by many names, but what it is probably called most often is “AAAAHHHHH!!!”

Although the mere sight of this thing strikes fear into the hearts of many, it’s harmless to humans (or so they say.)

They aren’t aggressive unless you really, really mess with them, and even then they aren’t lethal. Their bite is said to be similar to a bee sting, although I’d rather not find out for myself.

Some of its more common names are garden spider, corn spider, golden orbweaver, writing spider, black and yellow garden spider, banana spider, yellow garden argiope, yellow garden orb-weaver and zipper spider.

My husband’s grandmother who lived into her 90s called it a writing spider, and told an old wives' tale that she grew up believing. If it wrote your name in its web, that was a sign of your impending demise.

The small zig zags in the center of its web can actually look like it’s trying to write letters. It’s also supposed to be terribly bad luck to kill one.

If you’re new to the area and haven’t experienced your first late summer or early fall season in North Carolina yet…just wait. You are likely to see one of these big guys (girls, actually - the large ones are female) hanging out in its giant web near your home. They love front porches and back patios and the space in between bushes and the corners of rooftops. Their webs can be massive, I’ve seen some that had to be about three feet across.

We get one almost every year on our back covered porch, and if it’s out of the way, I let it be. But if it’s too close to the door, at my insistence, my husband gently relocates it to the woods behind our house. They are supposedly beneficial because they catch and eat other more harmful insects. That’s fine. It can be beneficial way back in the woods.

Once you get over the initial shock of how huge they are, about an inch and a half to two inches, they are actually pretty cool to watch. I just prefer to watch them from afar. A very, very far.

Spiders are one of those things that I just have a very visceral aversion to. Even so, I can respect that these things are pretty awesome. As long as there’s a nice, healthy distance between us. There are few things more terrifying than having one of these spiders create a web overnight and walking out your door in the morning and coming face to face with it. Or even worse, walking into the web before realizing it’s there.

Shudders.

Oh, and did I mention these behemoths have been known to eat frogs and small lizards that get caught in their super sticky web? And if that isn’t creepy enough, here’s another fun facteach night she eats the web and spins a new one.

So just a heads up, if you haven’t seen one around your house yet, now you’ll know what it is when you do. And if you are familiar with them and know any other fun facts or legends about them, send me a note at jamie@johnstonnow. com, I’d love to hear about it!