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Links to recent photos of friends and family.
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Visit Natasha's cousin, Larissa,
Leucauge venusta a small member of her family
Visit Natasha's promiscuous sister and her
3 boyfriends, Vadim, Vladimir and Vasili
Click for July 2004 photos of Nephila (male and female)
from Sandy's and John's
Visit, Svetlana, another cousin: Argiope aurantia(writing spider)
Click for a new garden spider: Araneus cavaticus
Below you can find an assortment of digital
photographs of Natasha, the golden silk spider, in her daily
routine. Click on the thumbnails below to see larger pictures of
Natasha in action.
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| Natasha on her Web |
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This is Natasha's web
in proportion to the house. |
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A close-up of Natasha's web. The web spans about
3-4 meters, with a diameter of about 1 meter. |
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Natasha, as seen from the other side of the
web. |
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Natasha on her web. At the bottom right of this
picture you can see the "gold silk", a material that is stronger
than kevlar. |
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Weaving her web. Click on the image and
view the circumferential fibers carefully. You'll see small dots on some of
them. This is a sticky material that traps an unsuspecting prey tightly
in the web.
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An up close image of the underside of
Natasha. |
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A good, clear shot of Natasha climbing on her
web. |
| Natasha Creating her
Web |
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Natasha creating her web. First she makes a coarse
web structure by extruding silk from her abdomen. She then fills in
the spaces between the major support elements. Her tho rear legs
direct the fiber to the proper position and anchor it at
intersections with the web outline. |
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A close up shot of Natasha extruding silk from the
distal end of her abdomen. |
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Natasha weaving her web, as seen from her
underside. |
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Natasha spinning her web. Notice how the web is
being created where she is working, and the blank area between the
support lines that she will work on next. Again, if you click on the
images, you'll see the sticky dots on the circumferential fibers. |
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Natasha
hangs upside-down as she creates her masterpiece. |
| Natasha Ready to
Strike |
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A view of Natasha on her web, ready to pounce on
any incoming prey, from the side. She is resting, head down, with
her legs holding some web segments under some tension. In this
manner, when prey lands in her web, she will feel their arrival and
be able to pounce as quickly as possible. |
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A view of
Natasha in pouncing position from the top. The cloudy web region
shown in this photo where there appears to be lots of short web
segments represents where Natasha attaches herself to the web while
in the launching position. After each capture, she positions
herself in the launching position, rotates her tail upward and sort
of glues herself to this region of the web. |
| Natasha Captures a
Cockroach |
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We decided to feed Natasha a cockroach to watch
her hunting skills in action. Quickly after the cockroach hit the
web, Natasha was springing into action. Here she captures and
immobilizes the hapless cockroach. |
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Here Natasha is wrapping her unfortunate victim in
sticky spider silk. |
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Natasha has wrapped her prey, pulled it to the top
of her web and hung it there, suspended until dinner. Now she has
moved back to her launching position to await her next tasty
treat. |
| Natasha Eats her
Dinner |
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Natasha is in the mood for dinner, so she works
her way along her web to a spot where she has previously stored
some tasty morsels for just such an occasion. |
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Natasha eats her hapless prey - a delicious
bumblebee. |
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Six hours and many morsels later, Natasha is
satiated. Here are the skeletons of her meal that are left behind,
hanging from the spider's web. |
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After her dinner, Natasha gets to work cleaning
her web in anticipation of her next arrival. |
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Natasha on her web, accompanied by some
after-dinner trash - remnants of her last meal. |
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Satiated and her web cleaned, Natasha settles down
to take a nap in the warm sun. |
| Natasha's Web after a
Rainstorm |
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Natasha's web is covered in droplets of moisture
and very easy to see after a rainstorm. |
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A close-up of the droplet-covered web. |
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A hapless mosquito, newly captured in Natasha's
moist web. |
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A close-up photograph of Natasha on her wet web.
Notice the droplets on her legs.
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