I was letting the dog out late one evening and saw a shadow on the outside corner of our front door. I took a closer look and realized that it was a large spider. I decided to quickly bring the dog in and call it a night. We are no strangers to dock spiders, but this one appeared quite different. What kind of spider is it?—Charles Boult, Bennett Lake, Ont.
Definitely not a dock spider, says Robb Bennett, a spider biologist with the Royal BC Museum in Victoria. (Your spideriffic lake was named after him. Oh, fine. It wasn’t.) That’s an orb-weaver, a.k.a. a garden spider, in the genus Araneus. “They build the symmetrical orb-webs that are so attractive on dewy mornings,” he says. To him, your specimen looks like
a female.
Araneus spiders are common across Canada and the northern U.S. And (who knew?) one is famous, says Bennett. Charlotte—from Charlotte’s Web—is a barn spider: Araneus cavaticus. That’s why her full name is Charlotte A. Cavatica.
Wild Profile: Meet the dock spider
There was no reason to get spooked by your cottage visitor. Orb weavers are harmless, and they’re usually smaller than dock spiders. But they can appear larger. They have bulky bodies and proportionally shorter legs, says Bennett. Dock spiders are also much more nimble—they hunt, and only use webs for guarding their eggs and “rearing the kids.” Orb weavers and their relatives, on the other hand, sit and wait in their webs for prey to come to them. “They’re awkward and clumsy,” says Bennett.
Of course, some of them can spell. According to E.B. White, at least.
Got a question for Cottage Q&A? Send it to answers@cottagelife.com.
This article was originally published in the June/July 2024 issue of Cottage Life.
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