A few nights ago, we went outside around 11:00 and saw this amazing spider-architecture. The photos will not be National Geographic worthy – remember this is an amateur with a not-that-expensive digital camera. As we watched Mr. (Ms.) Spider for the next 15 or so minutes, we were fascinated by the incredible and exquisite nature of this web and his/her food gathering acumen.

As quickly an unwitting flying insect of the night became ensnared in one of the distant (from the home base; the center of the web), Mr./Ms. Spider was on the path to munch up the invader. It was efficient, quick and silent (at least to our ears; probably, the moth being eaten might have been screaming in moth talk!).

In case you want to read more about spiders and the webs they create; the Library of  Congress has more information. The anatomy of a spider has more close-up information, too.

After watching for a while, we figured we would let this spider and the trap do what they do. We figured by the morning, we would find the nearly two-ft. radius web filled with night flyers and a fat contented arachnid in the center. To our utter surprise, in the morning, everything was gone … no web, no spider, nothing remained.

We found this possible explanation at “10 Creepy, Crazy Spider Facts.” 

“Spinning such large, intricate webs can take a lot out of a small insect. Many orb weaving spiders recycle their webs to save their time and strength. They do this by eating the silk, which is full of protein. They only leave the main thread to start a new web the next day.”

The next evening we went out about an hour and a half earlier, and there she/he was, busily at work building the evening’s shopping cart … in exactly the same place. Here are some pictures of “night two’s”  work with the amazing spider/spiderette. The pictures are an attempt to show the arachnid’s construction progress as she/he spun the web in a clockwise direction (from our vantage point).