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These small orb weavers are common outside my house. Here is what Rod Crawford, from the Burke Museum at the University of Washington had to say about this spider: This orbweaver is not actually an araneid, although the genus (Metellina) was so classified until recently. They are now considered Tetragnathids, because of details of body structure and also behavior (the web has an open hub, like Tetragnatha, unlike araneids which have a meshed-over hub to their webs). Certainly Metellina and, because it was around a house and apparently mature in fall, probably Metellina segmentata which is an introduced European species like A. diadematus. Although A. diadematus has been around most of the 20th century, M. segmentata has been in WA only since the 1980s and may be in the process of displacing the two native Metellina species. |
