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Photo#396338
Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - female

Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - Female
Alameda County, California, USA
May 14, 2010
Size: ~10-11 mm, I think
Here we go again. Five weeks after the previous set of photos, the old girl is older and bigger. Can she be IDed yet? I'm adding shots of her abdomen, hoping the epigynum is visible enough.

Images of this individual: tag all
Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - female Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - female Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - female Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - female Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - female Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - female Bristly orb weaver - Araneus andrewsi - female

Moved
Moved from Orb Weavers.

We suggested to Lynette that this might be andrewsi
and she agreed. There's probably no reason to move all 13 to the guide page. Maybe you can pick out the best four or five and move those to andrewsi and frass the rest.

 
I made an attempt
I tried to move a few of the juvenile photos and the dorsal and ventral adult views, plus the adult epigynum, to the species section and frass everything else. Keeping the juvenile and adult photos together provides a little info about growth rate. Whether I sent everything to the right place will be easier to check when the photos in frass expire.

Lynette seems to have a handle on
the pima/illaudatus confusion, so she may have something to add here. Our suggestion, however, would be A. andrewsi

 
Andrewsi
seems possible. However, the ventral view doesn't match the one already in the guide. I'm not sure what that means.

 
Furthermore...
the dorsal view doesn't match, either. My spider has definite abdominal markings. The two in the guide have plain abdomens (they don't even look like each other very much).

 
..
Yes, but color and pattern can vary significantly in the orb weavers. Levi (1971a) writes about A. andrewsi that "many individuals are almost black with the folium outline barely visible".

I was originally thinking perhaps Neoscona, but I think Lynette _might_ be on the right track. I can't see enough detail of the epigynum.

-K

 
ventral view..
I have a feeling since this girl is still a juvenile, she'll eventually match the other image. Hopefully, you can continue to watch her, and we'll see if she becomes andrewsi.

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