little spider, big mouthparts - Araneus cingulatus

Moved

Moved from holding bin for green Araneus.

… Lynette Elliott, 29 September, 2009 - 6:51pm

The big mouthparts are the enlarged palps

of a male. These are sperm transfer organs. The pattern on the back leads us to guess an orb weaver in the genus Araneus. It will be interesting to see what Lynette says.

… john and jane balaban, 10 June, 2009 - 9:31pm

i'll move it

over to Araneus for now

… Jessica Lawrence, 11 June, 2009 - 7:42am

Araneus cingulatus or Araneus partitus

If I had to guess I'd say Araneus cingulatus or Araneus partitus.

… Lynette Elliott, 10 June, 2009 - 10:12pm

We just made the holding bin

so we could gather all these green Araneus together and study them, not because we actually knew anything about how many species there were. Feel free to delete the bin if you like. We haven't looked at it in a long time.

… john and jane balaban, 10 June, 2009 - 10:14pm

no you were right

I looked again....and was editing my comment about the holding bin as you were replying. I see there are at least two species that look very similar. Now I also see Araneus bonsallae and juniperi also look pretty similar as well.

… Lynette Elliott, 10 June, 2009 - 10:16pm

well gosh

I am apparently all about some bug fornication tonight on my uploads... whee!

… Jessica Lawrence, 10 June, 2009 - 9:45pm

Not quite yet -- it's a subad

Not quite yet -- it's a subadult male.

-K

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 11 June, 2009 - 10:59am

hahaha

Age doesn't usually stop a male of any species

… Jessica Lawrence, 11 June, 2009 - 4:14pm