Nephila clavipes (I think) from the Everglades.
Beautiful, cuddly, they make great pets. And unlike the Burmese python they rarely grow big enough to consume your cat, much less a deer.
(A larger version of this photo is cross posted at Jonathan’s Photoblog.)
UPDATE: An earlier spider photo here.
Cuddly? Cuddly?
*faints*
I used to like the photos of webs when the spider had been given LSD.
I remember seeing such a photo in a Time Life book. They also had a picture of the web of a spider that had been fed caffeine.
The spiders that I photograph all swear they never touch the stuff.
Great. Now if they only grew big enough to catch pythons…
I remember seeing a picture of a South American Anaconda that swallowed a **cow **
Read that these snakes are causing a problem in the Everglades – if we could only get them together with the drug runners
The media always talk about large predators as if they’re going to eat everything. But predator populations are dependent on prey populations, so there will always be far fewer big predators than there are prey animals in a given area. Also, snakes that eat deer are competing with alligators and panthers. Still, I’m glad I didn’t run into that snake.
So am I … I had the heebie-jeebies for years over an illustration in our copy of Swiss Family Robinson that had a ginormous python swallowing one of the Robinson’s donkeys…
*shudder*
And I actually rather like snakes. Just not ones big enough to swallow medium-sized mammals.
Very cool spider! Actually, I’m one of very few women who grew up in the country and happen to like spiders. I always take them outside if I find them inside my home and taught my kids to do the same… I rescued a wolf spider in a store recently by getting it to crawl into a basket then running it outside.
Lauren, good for you and your kids.