Argiope trifasciata (Forskål, 1775)
Banded Garden Spider
Argiope trifasciata
Southeast Metro Park,
Travis Co., Texas
4 November 2010
Banded Garden Spider with a silk-wrapped bee
My ecology students found a few of these in their butterfly nets during a grasshopper mark-recapture lab. The area is an unmowed section of campus green space that was seeded with native grassland herbs, predominantly Rudbeckia.
Argiope trifasciata, also called banded garden spider in the USA, is a species of spider found around the world. In Europe you can find it in the Iberian peninsula, Canary islands, Madeira island and in the Azores archipelago , where the similar looking Argiope bruennichi is common. Considered a pest is some areas, they usually start to appear during the Fall (Autumn), from early September till late October, when the temperatures start dropping.
