Saco spider web, not to be messed with

Spiders won’t leave me alone. They both scare me and fascinate me. It’s like we’re meant to be… ok getting carried away. But I do see my share of spiders.

I was biking in southern Maine recently when I came across the biggest spider web I’ve ever seen. Beside of the trail, the web stretched down from a tree limb to a fence far below. I had to stop and take a good look. And the bulbous spider I found hard at work near the center was pretty nasty looking. The orange and black stripes on its legs made it seem tropical, and the round body looked like a turtle shell. OK, it wasn’t that big. In fact, it wasn’t even as big as the black and yellow garden spider I recently took a photo of. But it wasn’t small!

I didn’t have my zoom lens, so the photos aren’t up close and personal like some of my spider pics (they are really starting to pile up), but I’ll show you what I did manage to capture.

Photo by Aislinn Sarnacki. A spider builds a giant web beside a bike path in Saco on Aug. 14, 2012.

I just hope you appreciate that I stood on my tip toes to get these photos because this creepy thing was crawling and spinning its web above my head… above my arm reach really. It was a giant web. I’m so glad it was on the side of the trail and not smack dab in the middle. If I had run into this web on my bike, it would have engulfed half my body. (Shiver.)

A couple of other bicyclists stopped, too, while I was there and remarked on the crazy bigness of the spider and web.

So.. what is this spider? Any ideas? Leave guesses in the comment section below.

Aislinn Sarnacki

About Aislinn Sarnacki

Aislinn is a Bangor Daily News reporter for the Outdoors pages, focusing on outdoor recreation and Maine wildlife. Visit her main blog at actoutwithaislinn.bangordailynews.com.