First, for the last two summers my property has been overrun by the Northern Black Widow (Latrodectus variolus). These are distinguishable from the Southern Black Widow (Latrodectus mactans) by the fact that Northern Widows have broken hourglasses on their abdomen, while Southern widows have complete hourglasses. Note the broken hourglass on the female below.
Next up, we have the Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia), or I used to call them when I was a kid: the “zig-zag spider”, for obvious reasons. I love it when I get these around the house. They’re just plain cool. I also have an amazing video of the female below spinning her egg case.
These are freaky little creatures: I believe they are Coreidae sp. That’s about all I can figure out with a quick look on bug guide.
Menacing Giant Stag Beetle (Lucanus elaphus). These things scare the crap out of my wife.
And finally, an awesome example of obvious Natural Selection: a moth of the Hydriomena genus.
[...] have seen hundreds of black widows at my house (see some really cool closeups in my previous post on black widows). Normally they are down low, barely above the ground, peeking out from leaves or [...]