I found this uniquely decorated spider hanging around in my wife’s flower bed. In our part of the world we call these large arachnids, yellow garden spiders. This spider falls under the Argiope Aurantia classification.

The markings on it’s abdomen remind me of a tattoo. I think it looks like a tattoo of some space alien.

Because of this spider’s size, it looks menacing but the Argiope genus are harmless to humans. Like most garden spiders, they eat insects, and they are capable of consuming prey up to twice their size. The etymology of Argiope is from a Greek name meaning “silver-faced”.

Because of the very sparse web this one is hanging on, I’m guessing it is a male since the females tend to have a large, more complicated web with a prominent zig-zag pattern in the center. (Here’s an example from my collection – Found On the Web.)

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