The European Garden Spider by Bevan Nunan

The European garden spider is common across all of Europe. It is also called the “Cross Spider” from the white cross shape it forms on its abdomen from cells filled with guanine. The colour can range from ginger to dark grey. Two of these spiders accompanied the Apollo spacecraft launched in 1973 for experimentation and it was found they could build their webs in micro-gravity conditions. As being from the Araneidae family or orb-weavers they build the wheel shaped webs we commonly see. When building a web they send out a silk string in the wind and attach it to another surface then climb halfway across it and send out another string forming a “Y” shape. They then build the rest of their web this way....

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