Numbers
Metepeira labyrinthea MA, CT, NY, NJ, PA, ON, OH, MI, WI, IL, IN, KS, MO, KY, WV, VA, NC, SC, TN, AR, OK, TX, LA, MS, AL, GA, FL
Metepeira grandiosa BC, AB, SK, ND, SD, MT, WY, CO, KS, OK, NM, AZ, UT, ID, OR, NV, WA, CA
Metepeira foxi BC, AB, WA, OR, CA, ID, MT, WY, CO, UT, AZ, NM, TX
Metepeira palustris BC, AB, SK, ON, PQ, WI, MI, PA, NY, ME, NS, ND, SD, MT
Metepeira gosoga CA, NV, AZ, UT
Metepeira arizonica CA, AZ, NM, TX
Metepeira spinipes (syn. grinnelli) OR, CA, AZ
Metepeira comanche NM, TX
Only in California: Metepeira ventura and Metepeira crassipes
Only in Florida: Metepeira datona
Only in Texas: Metepeira minima
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Five species occur in Texas:
Metepeira arizonica Chamberlin & Ivie, 1942
Metepeira comanche Levi, 1977
Metepeira foxi Gertsch & Ivie, 1936
Metepeira minima Gertsch, 1936
Range
Metepeira spinipes F.O. Pickard-Cambridge is the most widely-distributed of the colonial web-building spiders in this genus, ranging from the central valley of Mexico and the Southern tip of Baja California to Northern California and Oregon.
Remarks
M. spinipes also exhibits wide variation in social grouping tendencies, ranging from solitaries and small groups of 2-3 individuals in desert and higher elevation habitats to groups of tens to hundreds in in mesic riparian habitats near lakes in central Mexico (Uetz et al. 1982), and along creeks in coastal areas of central California.
Experimental studies manipulating prey availability and “transplanting” colonies in the field in central Mexico suggest that colonial web-building in M. spinipes is facultative, and that prey availability plays a large role in determining group size, inter-individual spacing within colonies, and life history parameters over the gradient of habitats sampled (Uetz et al. 1982, Benton and Uetz 1986; Uetz et al. 1987).
The colonial orbweaving spiders of Mexico and the southwestern United States build interconnected webs, but they defend their own turf, says Uetz. The longest continuous colony that has been observed was built of orbs knitted together by hundreds of thousands of 1-centimeter-long spiders. It measured 4 m across and 2 m high and stretched nearly two football fields long!!!
