Besides the crab spider living in Kieran’s terrarium, we also have an orb weaver on our balcony. It’s a big, beautiful Araneus diadematus, or cross orb weaver. We brought her home one day from a walk in Rockridge, near Frog Park, when we found her web built between a car and some shrubs. We chivvied her into a bottle and brought her home. But she abandoned our big terrarium (where another orb weaver, a huge, pregnant Argiope aurantia, had happily built her own web in the summer) and built her web high up in a corner of our balcony. She’s stayed in that corner now for about four weeks. It’s a fine place to catch flies, and she snared one this morning for her brunch.
By now it should be obvious that my son is not at all afraid of spiders!
Earlier in the summer a fat mama Argiope aurantia made her web in the foliage of Kieran’s terrarium.
Steven E. F. Brown 