Garden cross spiders- I found them in my house!

Busy and excited at the same time for the celebrations of my fav bliss 'Diwali'- the most awaited festival for all the Indians!

What's the best part of Diwali celebrations is that the whole family gets involved in cleaning the house, dusting off the furniture and removing webs from the corners, keeping aside all their workload and stress for a week.

So, I was cleaning my room with the help of my siblings and my mom and suddenly I spotted her (yes! it's a female spider) at the corner of my room's window. Finding a spider amid dusting is not a big deal but its uniquely designed webs are the first cause of my curiosity for it!

Argiope pulchella is commonly known as Garden Cross spider. They made me so curious that I just threw the broom down and dashed for my phone to click the pictures and do some research on them. Have a quick look at my searched queries and the google responses:

Where are Garden cross spiders found?

Google says that Garden cross spiders range from the parts of India to the regions of China and are also found in Java- an island in Indonesia. This spider comes under the category of synanthropic species which means they are often seen in the areas associated with humans. They live around human habitats and probably take some benefits from the gardens, farms, houses and garbage dumps for their livings.

What's special about their uniquely designed webs?

The shape of their webs is circular while other spider species usually design oval-shaped webs. These unique wheel-shaped circular webs are known as orb-shaped webs and the Garden spiders are also known as Orb-weaver spiders. The cross shaped spirals at the centre of the webs look so astonishing! It's found that the webs are spun by the females (that's how I know that it's a female spider) only while the males reside at the borders for the sake of mating.

The reason behind their specially designed webs:

Different biologists have different thoughts about the orb webs;

1. they think the cross-shaped designs are there to strengthen the webs.

2. Others say, that the designed webs are for catching the prey as the special web decorations reflect the ultraviolet rays effectively which seems attractive to the prey.

3. It's also possible that the stabilimentum(web decorations) are specially designed to warn the predators to stay away from the webs.

However, still, the purpose for the cross-shaped weaves is a mystery for researchers and biologists.

Who are the predators?

The garden spiders usually have danger from the birds, wasps or hoverflies. When scared the spiders either exude from their webs or vibrate their webs vigorously and the webs become blur leaving the predators confused.

What do they feed on?

The Garden spider's diet includes moths, bees, flies, butterflies and other tiny insects. The orb weavers don't just swallow their prey in, before digesting they first wrap the insects in silk nicely and then have a diet (interesting!).

Final Thoughts

Garden cross spiders are one of the unique creature species I have ever seen! Their beautiful web decorations look so amazing and prove that these cute spiders are creative too!

I also want to share with you all, that there is another species called Argiope Keyserlingi or St. Andrews cross spiders which look alike the Garden cross spiders. First, I got confused between these two similar species but as St. Andrews are not found in India, it was obvious that the species I found were the Garden spiders. What's more interesting is that not just in my room the orb webs were present in other corners of my house too. There were 6 to 7 of them living in my house and before now, I never knew that!

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