Garden Spider (family Lycosidae)
Garden Spiders are very common and well-known spiders. Their colouring can range from extremely light yellow to very dark grey, but all have five or more large white dots forming a cross across their back. Like all spiders they have eight legs, which are striped. The third pair of legs is specialized for assisting in the spinning of circular webs up to 2 feet in diameter.
Habitats
Garden Spiders spin their webs in a variety of places, including from shrubs, fences, walls etc.
Behaviour
Garden Spiders are silent, but when they are threatened they produce a hissing sound by rubbing together the bristles on its legs. If an animal comes even closer still they will bite, but this is just slightly unpleasant and completely harmless to humans.
Breeding
The male spiders build a small web near or in the female’s web and then start courting the female by plucking the strands of her web. Once complete, the male spider dies and is sometimes eaten by the female spider. The female spiders then lays up to 4000 eggs in the middle of her web, and t he young spiders emerge the following spring.
Feeding
After spinning their web the spiders wait for flying or jumping insects to get trapped in it. The prey is then quickly captured and wrapped in silk before being eaten. Garden Spiders are said to eat their webs each night along with many of the small insects stuck to it.