Araneus Diadematus (European Garden

Spider)

Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Family: Araneidae

The European garden spider is very common across all of Europe

and is also found in parts of Northern Europe. It is also called the
“Cross Spider” from the white cross shapes
it forms on its abdomen from cells filled
with guanine. The color can range from
ginger to dark grey. Two of these spiders
accompanied the Apollo spacecraft in 1973
for experimentation and it was found they
could build their webs in micro-gravity
conditions. As being from the Araneidae family or orb-weavers they
build wheel shaped web we commonly see. When building a web
they send out a silk string in the wind and attach it to another
surface then climb halfway across it and send out another string
forming a “Y” shape. They then build the rest of their web this way.
Individual strings are about 2.0mm thick and have a similar strength
to an equivalent amount of steel. They have six spinnerets at their
rear, four for making silk to build webs and two that produce a fluid
to aid the trapping of prey. They remain on the web and let their
prey hit it and get caught in it. The spider has sensory organs in its
front legs that feel vibrations in the web when something hits it. It
then rushes to its prey and quickly wraps it up in silk. It is unable to
eat the prey directly so must inject digestive enzymes into it and
sucks out the resulting liquid leaving a crumpled mass of undigested
pieces still wrapped in silk.

The spider is known to stridulate when threatened (rub certain body

parts together to make a noise like a cricket does. The female is
bigger than the male with an abdomen bigger in proportion to the
rest of her body. The male approaches the female carefully for
mating as it can be mistaken for food. When close, the male secretes
sperm onto a special sperm web then collects it with palps and
inserts the palps into the female’s epigrastic furrows.

The male will die shortly after. The semen is stored in semen
receptacles until the eggs are released. The female looks for a good
place to lay the eggs, usually a crevice in bark or a wall. She uses a
web cocoon which she makes from silk when she lays the eggs. She
stays near the cocoon for repairs but she too, will die after a few
days.
The eggs have several stages of development and it is at first larvae
that come out of the egg. There are more stages for these also before
they become young spider lings. The spider lings quickly disperse
because cannibalism happens often.