Golden Silk Orb Weaver - Nephila clavipes
The Golden Orb Weavers build large, semi-permanent orb webs. The strong silk has a golden sheen. These spiders remain in their webs day and night and gain some protection from bird attack by the presence of a 'barrier network' of threads on one or both sides of the orb web. Sometimes their strong webs manage to trap small birds or bats, and the spider will wrap them and feed upon them. Commoner prey items include flies, beetles, locusts, wood moths and cicadas. Golden Silk Orb Weavers are large spiders (body 2-4 cm) with silvery-grey to plum coloured bodies and brown-black, often yellow banded legs. The males are tiny (5 mm) and red-brown to brown in colour. This spider belongs to the Tetragnathidae (longjawed orbweavers) family.
Nephila clavipes is the only species in the Nephila genus that exists in the USA.
Black and Yellow Argiope - Argiope Aurantia
This lovely spider only has a short life span and once she has produced one or more (usually no more than 3) brown, papery egg sacs, she will die. The egg sacs are roughly round in shape and up to 25 mm in diameter; each contains 300 to 1400 eggs. She attaches her egg sacs to one side of her web, close to her resting position at the centre. Each female will watch over her eggs as long as she can, but will die in the first hard frost, if not before. The eggs hatch in Autumn ( fall), but spiderlings stay in the sac during winter and emerge in spring. There is also a silver argiope which differs in that it has a metallic silver back.