I've become fascinated by a spider named Cat Face spider (Araneus gemmoides), called that because its abdomen resembles the face of a cat. I'd never seen this spider prior to moving the the San Luis Valley, and we're now hosting our second known Cat Face spider visitor on the outside of the house. The picture to the left is probably a female since it was fairly large - nothing to show its relative size, but its abdomen was probably at least the size of an average marble, or the upper part of my pinky finger. The one shown in the image I found in August 2006, when it was hanging out on the north side of the house in an sheltered area on a fence post. It came running out when I was preparing to work on the fence.
The second Cat Face spider visitor is now visible in the living room window that faces south, and has spun a big web covering much of the window (photo to right). Just this morning it caught a moth (or the moth stumbled into the web more likely) and is now wrapping it in silk. I guess next it'll make a meal of it and then dispose of the dried-up body.
Spiders are such interesting critters, but I always get the creeps when I imagine one of these guys crawling on me!
The URL below has some information on this particular type of spider. http://entomology.wsu.edu/insectoftheweek/CatFaceSpider.html
I see you took a look at the cat faced spiders on my blog, and of course, I had to check yours out as well. Aren't they cool! They seem to have different color variations depending on where they hang out.
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